Nov 22

Nov 22 Suhasini Iyer: "iGEM Led Me to Synthetic Biology"

“I think iGEM was the most memorable experience of my bachelor's. If I didn't have it, I wouldn't be doing what I am doing right now. I got into synthetic biology because of iGEM and that's why I'm pursuing it right now, so for me, iGEM plays a big role in my life.”

Coming from an engineering background, Suhasini Iyer was introduced to the realm of synthetic biology through an email from her school, where she learnt about the iGEM Competition and chose to enroll. Suhasini is becoming a synthetic biology geek after participating in iGEM NUS_Singapore 2019 as the head of the modelling team. She is currently doing her Master's degree at Imperial College London with a major in synthetic biology.

iGEM NUS_Singapore 2019: E.co LIVE project Kicks off

Suhasini’s iGEM journey started with months of brainstorming during the competition preparation, until they came up with E. co LIVE.

“I remember, there was one day, where we were like what's the common thread that actually links all of these applications and why is it that none of these applications has been realized, so we always saw that whenever you read the paper in the discussion part you always have a limitation or a caveat that's mentioned. One of them's always been that we can use bacteria, but sometimes it's difficult for the bacteria to stay alive, because it doesn't have the nutrients to it, like you can put it in the sea to clean up an oil spill, but we don't know how long it'll survive there. And things like that, so we were like”: Okay so let's tackle that issue, instead of going about every different application let's try and tackle like a foundational problem that can help address these challenges, that's how we came with E.co LIVE, the growth switch idea because it was interesting to be able to just control the growth of bacteria so closely and using that getting them to survive, or no limited source of nutrients.”

Memorable moment in iGEM NUS_Singapore 2019 Journey

‘’A unique memory from iGEM for me is the days before the presentation and I remember the day before the presentation.. actually.. a whole team was huddled in this hotel room in Boston and we were all.. I think 9 or 10 of us in this hotel room and just going through the slides and practising and then we were defining the tone and the intonation, and timing ourselves and that was an experience that always lives with me, because everyone was so invested in that presentation and it was just really nice to work on it with everyone together.’’

Suhasini’s team, NUS_Singapore 2019 iGEM Team won the best project in its track (Foundational Advances) as well as the best part collection.

Throughout the project, she did not only focus on the modelling area but was exposed to wider fields in synthetic biology such as human practice and also collaborated with the wet lab team which exposed her to various fields of people that have helped her decide on pursuing synthetic biology as her postgraduate studies. Not to mention the credits from the exceptionally supportive Principal Investigator of iGEM NUS_Singapore, Associate Professor, Poo Chueh Loh, in terms of guiding them during the project but also guiding each one of them individually, when they had any questions or support while moving on to the next phase of higher education.

Current Role: Masters at Imperial College London

Suhasini has always wanted to pursue a master's degree that focuses on research, and the research master's program she is interested in is available in the United Kingdom, active biology community, startups, education, and synthetic biology collaboration with other fields. She decided to continue her studies as an MRes in Synthetic Biology at Imperial College London. specifically, London, which has also been appealing to Suhasini.

“I thought it was interesting because you get to work on a nine- to ten-month-long project all on your own and I thought that would really, really help me develop my skills in a lab.. the thing is.. I had never done a PCR or anything like that in my life before, so, the idea of doing everything from scratch and doing it all, on my own.. I thought that was interesting and not a lot of universities offer that.’’

Being a cross-major student with hardly any experience in wet lab experiments made her master’s path exceedingly difficult, but she made every attempt to proactively ask questions and acquaint herself with the research and knowledge found in a supportive environment from her school and lab mates. Hence, independent study is highly encouraged in the program she is enrolled in, the systems and synthetic biology course in which she must choose a subject she is interested in and work on it for eight to nine months following three months of lecture coursework. She's currently in the period where she has to go to the lab every day!

“I feel like it's a good use of my knowledge in synthetic biology, as well as chemical engineering, to be able to help in scaling up a process in order to make it more mainstream, as opposed to being this niche technology that costs are like making a compound that costs like a thousand dollars for like one gram, so I would like to focus more on scaling up synthetic biology technologies.’’

Synthetic Biology and Beyond

Suhasini has demonstrated that anyone from any background can flourish in synthetic biology if they have a strong desire to learn and are proactive in seeking out information from a variety of sources. Here is some advice given to cross-major students who intend to pursue synthetic biology further!

“It's important to just trust yourself and trust your skill set and then go on to learn, and I think you're going to be learning in this field like the whole time you're never going to stop and be like okay, now I know everything. So, just don't be overwhelmed by that and don't think that you do not have what it takes for the field. Especially when you come from a background that's not traditionally associated with synthetic biology it's very important to believe that even though you don't come from that background, you can make a valuable contribution to the field. And you can learn the things that need to be learned to do well in that field, because very early on, I had that and I was thinking that because I come from a different background, I don't know if I'll be able to understand everything here. It's important not to feel that way. It's important to just trust yourself and do the best you can, and that would be my advice.”

In addition, Suhasini is also the Co-Chair of the iGEM Community Education Steering Group!

“Education is kind of a topic that's quite dear to me, I do believe that if you have the right opportunities and the right resources, it can change the way your life goes, especially based on my personal experience, I think the opportunities that have been available to me like heavily shaped what I'm doing right now and awareness like just having an awareness of what's out there and what you can do is is something we take for granted, but I think it can change. The kind of things people want to pursue and what they end up doing that's why to join the education steering group because it was a good way to. It was a good way to have access to a large number of people and listen to them and then organize initiatives that can cater to them and help them in their educational journey. So that was something I would have wanted, when I was just starting out in university, I hope to provide that for others, so I joined the steering group.”

Learn more about the current projects of the Education Steering Group here.

To sum up, iGEM means a community to Suhasini.

“[To describe iGEM] I would say community because it helps you to reach out to so many people in the world that you wouldn't have met otherwise and people are genuinely so willing to just learn from each other and share whatever kind of knowledge they have with each other and just genuinely help more people out in this world to do what they want to do and make them understand what's out there in terms of the field and its potential so, my word would be: community.’’

Note: After conducting this interview, Suhasini received her master’s and is now an intern at Peptobiotics, a synthetic biology startup in Singapore, as per her LinkedIn Profile.

Join us in Paris and celebrate the 20th Year of iGEM at the 2023 Grand Jamboree.

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