Re: Essential equipment for home genetic engineering?

[Koeng]

Here are a few things

Incubator (needed for accurate growing)

Centrifuge (needed for DNA purification)

Electrophoresis set (validation and purification)

vortex (helpful when resuspending)

-20 C freezer (storing plasmids)

4 C refrigerator (storing plates)

-80 C freezer (I really want to get one but can't afford D:(used for storing bacteria strains))

Thermocycler (PCR, restrictive enzymes, ect)

Pipettes (How are you gonna transfer anything?)

Pressure cooker (If you can't get one, used the microwave)

Waterbath 

Strains

pGreen from Carolina (nice starter plasmid)

E coli K12 (easy to get strain)

If you want to start small just get some plasmids an start doing small transformation with a vector that has GFP (how I started). All you will need is an incubator (optional) some loops, a few pipettes, and good agar plates.

Some reagents and consumables

LB agar (make your own. It is a hell lot cheaper)

Petri dishes

ampicillin

restrictive enzymes and ligase (or go the other route like me and use the gibson assembly on almost everything)

Taq pcr kit

pipette tips

centrifuge tubes

PCR tubes

loops

My recommendation for your situation (because I started just about where you started expect I found DIY bio much later)-

1. Identify your first goal. This could be as simple as a transformation.

2. Then gather materials for that goal. All those materials will be useful later. I have several metal inoculating loops but I like to use plastic ones because they don't cut my cheap agar plates when I try to get a colony

3. Complete it. (Important)

4. Repeat

This is what I did and it worked out pretty well!

On Saturday, January 19, 2013 7:56:39 AM UTC-8, Ross Mitchell-Smith wrote:

Hi all.

        I am a 16 year old student and aspiring geneticist who has recently stumbled upon the idea of DIY biology. I want to start genetically engineering (eg creating new types of bacteria or isolating certain useful genes) from home. I have a firm understanding of the very basics of genetics however I am ignorant as to what equipment I might need. Any help, information or advice would be greatly appreciated. :)

[Sebastian S. Cocioba]

Ebay is going to be your best friend for the equipment listed. Ive seen some nice gilson/eppendorf sets for dirt cheap. Also try to ask different biotech companies for samples. SydLabs, lucigen, and other smaller biotechs have no issue shipping to home addresses. I got tons for taq from samples and lived off of them for about a year, experiment-wise. Boston bioproducts offers lots of electrophoresis reagents and edvotek has some nice kits. Everything in kits can be found in parts from online stores and suppliers. With a little time and effort you can make some interesting progress. Good luck! :)

Sebastian S Cocioba

CEO & Founder

New York Botanics, LLC

Sent via Mobile E-Mail 

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[Ross Mitchell-Smith]

Thanks guys! Some real helpful information here, I'll post here again once I get the equipment (could be a while haha)

[Koeng]

Ebay IS where I got ALL of my equipment 

[Nathan McCorkle]

Most companies are usually pretty good with giving out samples, you
sometimes just have to randomly call them and ask if they don't
advertise. 'trial' or 'sample' size is a good way to ask for a small
amount of a product.

mobio.com has a samples section. Are you in Scotland? If so this could
make it a bit harder to get items and materials since it's an island
and postage/shipping is higher.

also check out the info on this wiki
http://diyhpl.us/wiki/diybio/faq/

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 10:35 AM, Ross Mitchell-Smith
<rossa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks guys! Some real helpful information here, I'll post here again once I get the equipment (could be a while haha)
>

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> Learn more at www.diybio.org
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[Jonathan Street]

Shipping costs are going to depend on distance more than being on an island. If you have to buy your reagents from a small US company then it could be expensive. For most items there are likely to be a variety of alternatives in Europe though and the larger companies typically have distribution centres in Europe even if they aren't based there.

[osazuwa]

Hi Keong,
This list you give is a lot to bite off for a beginner (especially a 16 year old who I assume doesn't have a salary).  You suggested he start with a simple transformation involving GFP in E coli K12.  Can you subset this list to a smaller, basic list that is sufficient for such simple transformation protocols?  That way he can learn from some early successes and targeting where he wants to upgrade.

[Jeswin]

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 10:23 PM, osazuwa <rober...@gmail.com> wrote:
> old who I assume doesn't have a salary). You suggested he start with a
> simple transformation involving GFP in E coli K12. Can you subset this list
> to a smaller, basic list that is sufficient for such simple transformation
> protocols? That way he can learn from some early successes and targeting

Yea, like getting a plasmid transformation to work out. It will drive
you crazy when all you find on the culture plate is the empty slab of
agar.

[Sebastian S. Cocioba]

The biorad pGLO kit uses only a water-bath in terms of equipment needed but the protocol states a cup of hot water and a thermometer will suffice. Its the most bare bones protocol I've seen so far. Comes with everything needed. Plasmid, amp, arabinose, agar, plastic pipettes, dishes, etc etc.

Sebastian S Cocioba

CEO & Founder

New York Botanics, LLC

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