The Living Revolution

IndiaBioscience is an organisation serving as the bridge between the ivory towers of academic research, clinicians, and the wider public, It serves to take the science funded by public money and give it back to the community, whether it is through outreach programmes, mentorship schemes or getting people in the same room for fruitful discussions.

Executive director Dr. Karishma Kaushik resembles this very bridge. She has had a career both as a clinical microbiologist and principle investigator, pivoting towards science facilitation at India Bioscience. Together, we discuss her ‘bucket list’ for the future of India’s life science ecosystem, including a networking platform for the global Indian diaspora. With her experience in science mentorship, we delve into what it takes to be a scientist today and the true value of a PhD.

The Living Revolution brings you scientists, industry leaders and entrepreneurs working on engineering biology to solve the world’s most pressing challenges. Listen in if you want to hear about the trials and successes of the bioeconomy.

Today’s hosts were Sandra Martinez Diaz and Sara Knurowska. This episode was edited, transcribed and produced by Sara Knurowska. The transcript can be found using this link. Music attributions: space intro 4.wav by zagi2-- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 and Dreamy.mp3 by teejay537  -- License: Attribution 3.0

Wastewater is a gold mine for energy, nutrients and water. Marc Wehmeijer dispels myths about breaking in to the wastewater industry, and takes us on a tour of the global wastewater treatment landscape from the deserts of Durango, Mexico to the Swiss Alps.

Marc Wehmeijer is the CEO of ThinkTIM, a company that designs, manufactures, installs and services wastewater treatment recycling units. Wehmeijer advocates for the use of artificial wetlands as treatment methods and to promote biodiversity. He emphasises wastewater as a 'microbiological zoo', detailing how we can extract phosphates from wastewater and use excess sludge to produce energy. 
Additionally, he promotes segmenting wastewater treatment processes with the end use in mind - for example, not using portabilised water for crop irrigation. The key message of wastewater treatment being: decentralise, segment and capitalise to the full extent!

The Living Revolution brings you scientists, industry leaders and entrepreneurs working on engineering biology to solve the world’s most pressing challenges. Listen in to hear the trials and successes of the bioeconomy.

This podcast is produced by Sara Knurowska. The full transcript can be found using this link.

Algae is a high potential and high protein food. Learn how engineers and entrepreneurs like Peter Mponzi are using algae to cultivate the future of nutrition.

Peter Mponzi is a chemical process engineer by training and current entrepreneur in algal production. He has eight plus years experience in the renewable fuel industry, and is currently focusing specifically on downstream algal processing and scale-up. Mponzi talks us through the technical, regulatory and market success criteria for algal cultivation and what you can expect from the algal revolution.

The Living Revolution brings you scientists, industry leaders and entrepreneurs working on engineering biology to solve the world’s most pressing challenges. Listen in if you too like to hear the trials and successes of the bioeconomy.

This podcast is produced by Sara Knurowska.

Access the transcript for this episode using this link. 

Join us for a whirlwind tour of the key problems with modern agriculture and the alternative emerging technologies. In this final episode with Agata the biocontainment researcher and Simon, Head of Human Practices, from the Wageningen iGEM team, we discuss how synthetic biology can be used as a technology to prevent crop frost damage. We reflect on using synthetic biology in agriculture and discuss common misconceptions, and the gap between scientific advancements and public perceptions behind the nascent field.

In an iGEM competition, open source interchangeable parts of genetic material (BioBricks) allow hundreds of teams of students to create synbio solutions to real world problems. Joined by captain Johannes and treasurer Niko from the 2023 Wageningen iGEM team, we discuss their challenges and ideas about creating novelty, using non-model organisms, and the importance of educating ourselves about novel technologies, not to be dissuade by fear. 

The Wageningen iGEM Team is developing a solution to prevent frost damage using synthetic biology. Listen to find out more about how frost damage affects farmers, markets and us as consumers, and how Wageningen plan the scientific aspects of their project. Get an insight into the dynamics of team work and the attitudes of aspiring scientists.

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Can you patent a newly discovered protein? Does getting a patent depend on the application? What does intellectual property encompass? Our guests, IP specialists Sara Holland and David Holt from Potter Clarkson, join us to shed light on these topics and explore why protecting biotechnological innovations is crucial. Get ready to expand your knowledge and better understand what can be considered an 'invention'.

Sebastian Cocioba is an amateur scientist  pursuing his scientific curiousities from his home lab and mentoring young scientists via Binomica Labs.
His mission is to enable agency through building open source tools and allow anyone to explore the world around them.

Coming up in this episode, we talk oceans, what lives in different benthic zones, and also about jargon and communicating science, edutainment and a small bay drone made from trash. 

Binomica Labs for science mentorship
Sebastian Cocioba on Twitter

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Sebastian Cocioba is an amateur scientist conducting research from his home lab. In our previous episode, we discussed how he's building tools for the future molecular florists.

Here and now, we take this topic further, starting with the example of a DIY directed evolution machine made cheaply. If you're an engineering student, we encourage you to make, improve and remake his designs. You'll be supporting a community of open source directed evolution machines.

In this episode, we also hear a story about one of the students Sebastian mentored: a potential future molecular florist? It's a story about a science competition, an interesting plant, how to tell a good story and more. Binomica Labs provides the wetware, hardware, and more for thoughtful experiments. We hope you like this episode.

Binomica Labs for science mentorship
Sebastian Cocioba on Twitter

Follow us for upcoming episodes!

Sebastian Cocioba is a scientist and researcher building open source tools to make research easier and cheaper. Do you, by any chance, know where the M9 media comes from and what it was originally used? Sebastian takes us on a two year journey to discover the origin paper of this medium and how he ended up falling in love with photobiology, better defining his research questions and more. We take the journey with him as he becomes a researcher for hire and starts a mentorship programme for other keen scientists with Binomica Labs; the wetware, thoughtware, hardware to help you follow your curiousities and learn about the world around you.

https://binomicalabs.org/
https://twitter.com/ATinyGreenCell

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