Synthetic Biology at Science House

ScienceHouse is a cool organization with a mission to "bring people together to promote and advance science." Small, infomal meetings are their specialty. Recently, two of our DIYbio NYC denizens spoke at a gathering focused on syntheric biology. Check it out on the ScienceHouse website at http://sciencehouse.com/inside-sciencehouse/2009/11/synthetic-biology/

Also, we'll soon post more about ScienceHouse, including a special workshop on Biosecurity arranged in conjunction with DIYbio NYC.

Watch video of Russ talking about DIYbio NYC:

http://www.sciencehouse.com/VideoDIYBio.html

Watch Sung explaining the BioBricks concept:

http://www.sciencehouse.com/VideoBiobricks.html

Fun with the webcam microscope

Well, we followed the advice of the Boston DIYbio group and took the webcam apart to reverse the lens properly. When we get together next week, we'll build a stage for it so we can control the focus. For now, by holding it steady and putting it near Brian's chin, we caught a pretty impressive view of his five o"clock shadow. Can you say "Too much information"?

We also tried parts of a flower- stamens and pistils- but could not hold it steady enough to get a similarly good picture.

Late night work at NYCR

Being ever hardworking, we are spending tonight at NYCR getting through some much needed management stuff and blogging. Who said science isn't cool?

BioArt NY - First Meeting

Dan and Nurit from our group went to check out the first meeting of BioArt NY at 11th Street Bar this Tuesday. Much fun and biology was had by all. Stay tuned for further updates as we work with the awesome bio artists in the city!

NYCR DNA extraction night

Cheers!

Thanks to the wonderful people at NYC Resistor, we are now doing our weekly meetings and workshops at their space (almost) every Wednesday. Here's a brief record of what we did for our first night at the space.

The night's event was a straight DNA extraction affair, except that we were doing it using cheek cells from our own body (our previous attempts were done using fruit). The protocol is about the same. While we didn't use household materials in extracting DNA this time (instead we used chemicals that came in fancy looking bottles) the ingredients are more or less the same.

We are using Gatorade, lysis solution (it's just a detergent ingredient-wise), and ice-cold alcohol.

First, we start with Gatorade to wash our mouths for one minute. After that, we spit the contents into plastic tubes and mix it with lysis solution, shaking it throughly. Then we pour cold alcohol into the mix, a highly complex operation that needs all the concentration and control one can muster.

Make sure to pour it down the wall of the tube, so you don't disturb the contents. If you're successful, you'll end up with...

The white stuff in the middle contains DNA from our own cheek cells! Some of us made a small necklace containing our own DNA, which is just plain cool (or crazy).

We were also joined by some wonderful people from the Sciencehouse who came to check out our operation. Hi guys!

Protein purification night at Dan's

Hi everyone.

It's been a while since we've uploaded anything to this blog owing to much changes and projects that we were (and are) working on. We'll be updating the blog shortly with news of what we've been doing all these days, but here's something to tide you guys over.

We held a protein purification workshop a while ago with some of our fellow members. The process itself was a simple exercise using GFP producing plasmid containing E.Coli cells

(prepared before the event itself, since introducing plasmids to E.Coli cells take a while and can't be done in a single night session). Afterward we tried to run the plasmids on gelboxes, one of

our own design and the other one sold commercially.

Here are some of the equipments we used.

While there were a few mistakes during the course of the lab, the purification of the protein itself went along swimmingly. We did have some real issues with running the gelbox though. The trials and tribulations of the commercial and DIY gelbox will be documented at a later date with pictures and possibly a video (when I'm not writing past midnight).

DNA: Everybody's Favorite Party Favor!

Well, yesterday DIYbio NYC took ConfluxCity by storm. Or maybe by goo.

The day started out auspiciously, with the Tompkins Square Greenmarket giving us a primo spot on Avenue A to set up our DNA Extraction Party table. We laid out all our supplies- dish detergent, plastic champagne glasses, salt, meat tenderizer, etc.- on our bright green table with a cool poster of our logo in front. The day was sunny and perfect for DNA-making.

There was an amazing amount of foot traffic in the park that day. The DNA extraction process seemed to fascinate people of all ages and cultures. Of course, there was the woman who asked if our oven mitts (in case the alcohol was too chilly to hold) were for sale. And the one who walked away in disgust when she found she couldn't drink the final product...

Whatever gave us the idea that our sign would explain what we were doing? 95% of the folks who stopped to look asked "What are you doing?" and when we replied "extracting DNA" the second question was always "Why, what can you DO with it?" The answer they seemed to like best was "test it to see if the fruit was genetically engineered". The second most popular answer was "if all the strawberries on earth were wiped out, you could recreate them with what's in your little test tube- just like Jurassic Park but without the bloodshed". Yes, we brought microfuge tubes so they could take their DNA home as a souvenir.