IIT research model in global contest traces early signs of cancer relapse

Kolkata: A group of IIT Kharagpur students from Department of Bioscience and Biotechnology has developed a synthetic biology proof-of-concept platform or research model called TRACER to explore new ways of identifying early signs of cancer relapse.This idea is the institute's official entry to the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) 2025 competition. The team comprises Krishna Kant, Akshara Sankranthi, Kairav Barua, Bhanvi Kumar, Shreya Mohanty, Ayush Munshi and principal investigators associate professors Arindam Mondal, Agneyo Ganguly, assistant professors Vinay Patel and Mainak Bose. The team will leave for Paris on Saturday to participate in iGEM, scheduled from Oct 28 to 31. They are in the process of engineering mammalian cells, which could be adapted in future to sense various molecular signals, from cancers to viral infections.