Alzheimer’s is very quickly becoming one of the biggest burdens on our healthcare systems. The specific nature of the kind of geriatric care and support required coupled with the predicted rise in cases makes us predict that it will be hard for current infrastructure to keep up with these changes. In India, in particular, the lack of awareness and discussion about the prevalence of the disease makes it particularly more delicate of a situation. The lack of trained professionals and institutions directly leads to loss of family income due to family members staying home to take care of their elderly. This also takes a psychological toll on the people involved closely. These factors worsen in India due to rapid urbanization and the slow disintegration of the joint family unit. India, also burdened by its milieu of taboos and regressive, developing regions with low exposure, suffers at the hands of people not understanding the neuropathologies of old age and ill–formed prejudices about what is expected of our elderly. This leads to a general stigmatization and resistance to getting tested. A lot of our communication, outreach, and human practices work then complements the purpose of solving our problem statement itself. As we attempt to precisely define the problem through the stakeholders involved and also raise awareness among vulnerable populations.

The importance of science lies in its promise for the future. To ensure this future though, it becomes vital to ensure scientific knowledge is disseminated among aspiring students and learners and awareness about the potentials and most recent advances in available technologies be regularly and effectively communicated through the scientific community and an establishment of an extended kinship across the spectrum. Our primary aim is to educate and inspire a diverse audience about the exciting world of synthetic biology through workshops and educational initiatives.

For this, our work was divided primarily along three axes:

Educational Workshops: We conduct informative workshops designed to introduce synthetic biology and its multidisciplinary aspects to students, targeting everyone from the BTech audience of our college to schools. These workshops challenge misconceptions and emphasize the significance of iGEM in bridging the gap between academic knowledge and real-world applications. Our objective is to equip students with practical skills, ignite their passion for science, and prepare them for future careers in biotechnology and synthetic biology. The required content curation and modification to suit the different types of audiences we targeted in all three levels we worked at, helped us create different standardized and organized methods to describe the opportunities and scope of synbio in different, specific terms tailored to the understanding level and also relatability of each demographic involved

Media Outreach: We harness the power of digital media and social platforms to increase awareness about synthetic biology and reach a wider audience, especially the younger generation. We utilize social media platforms to share articles, surveys, and engaging posts about synthetic biology. Our objective is to demystify the subject, debunk myths, and promote interdisciplinary research

Conferences: Participation in the All India iGEM Conference allows us to network with like-minded individuals, share our insights, and learn from fellow iGEM teams. By exchanging ideas, and showcase our work, our objective is to foster collaboration and broaden our knowledge base, all while sharing our passion for synthetic biology and its potential to address real-world challenge

In summary, our efforts in workshops, media outreach, and conference participation are geared toward promoting the understanding and significance of synthetic biology, inspiring the next generation of scientists, and expanding our network within the iGEM community.

In the context of our project in particular and the development of POC Diagnostic kits in low resource settings it becomes very important to directly involve with the stakeholders of the project and use that information we collect to reshape the design and implementation of our project so that our kit actually addresses the needs and gaps that currently exist in as comprehensive a way as possible.

We engaged with experts to gain their opinions and formulate consolidated insights from all our interactions and finally apply them to our project as we moved forth in this journey. Throughout our research the focus points were:

1) Understanding the reason behind lack of awareness regarding Alzheimer among the general populace.

a) We visited Haridwar and talked to a variety of people, especially the elderly, and asked them about their life, and Alzheimer patients, and caregivers.

b) IISER Trivandrum, as per collaboration, visited a nearby Hospital for us, to understand about Alzheimer Patients and Caregivers.

c) We conducted surveys to assess how much people are informed about existing provisions for detection, prevention, and effect of Alzhiemer in people’s life.

2) Integrating human practices into coming up with ideas for developing the protocol for our kit

a) We talked to Neurologist and Professors to understand the Biomarkers involved in Alzhimer and potency of using Saliva as a biomarker

b) We participated in the All India iGEM Meet held in Bhopal where we presented our Project idea and working solution. We received invaluable feedback, and interesting suggestions for our kit which helped our project along the way.

c) We conducted sessions with entrepreneurs and leading startups in the field to understand the impact, importance and scaling of our proposed solution.

We hope that our extensive work can help bring forth a difference in the detection of Alzhiemer especially among the older populace. More importantly, we hope that our efforts would enable an open dialogue on the raging issues of cognitive and social impacts of the disease especially in the low resource areas. We hope that the Scientific and the Medical community will further use our work to give viable inputs to create an inclusive, Open Medical System and an Awakened, Sensitive and Aware Society.