Re: [DIYbio] Newbie Questions - Is this possible?

[Iván Esteban Araya]

Summarizing my opinion

1- Modify large organism? No way .... to expensive and dificult

2- Modify bacteria? Yes, is possible but limited because basically we dont know enough yet about the interaction between the molecular elements and the effects of a genetic modification on the all system. Everybody knows it will be possible one day, but not today. In practice that sounds more like this: "lets test if modifying this gene, we have not screwed up with the rest of the important features of the organism"  .... trial and error

2013/5/25 Veltoss <tyler.le...@gmail.com>

Hello everyone,

I've been slowly getting into DIYbio for a while now, off and on reading more and more about it. I have plenty of reading material still lined up, and it will still be a while before I even start doing beginner projects, but I wanted to see if a couple of things were possible first.

I know these are possible in a way, but to be more specific, are they possible for a non-scientist to do in a garage lab without spending thousands of dollars and having a degree in genetics/biology?

1. Modifying large organisms. By large, I mean something like Zebrafish rather than just bacteria. Is it possible to modify the genes of something the size of Zebrafish in a garage lab? I know that they are a popular organism for large labs nowadays, but is it simply too difficult for a single person garage lab?

2. Greatly modifying small organisms. I had an idea, and I know it may (or may not?) sound like a crazy one. Is it possible to start with something small, like a single cell organism, bacteria, or even microscopic zooplankton, and over the course of a long period, continue changing their genes until they're something entirely different? Would it be possible to basically create a new small organism, as a long-term project? For a more specific example, let's say you start with a single cell organism, and by adding more and more genes create some kind of barely visible-by-the-eye water dependent (like aquatic animals) organism that is capable of swimming through water, eating, etc? Something similar to zooplankton, or hydra jellyfish, or even brine shrimp, basically?

The reason I'm asking, especially about the second question, is that despite what I've read so far I don't quite understand where the line is drawn. Some things sound easy, like cloning fungi, making things glow, and so on, but at what point does it become far too difficult and/or expensive for us to do? I hope I made my questions and examples clear enough, and sane enough. 

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[Veltoss]

Kind of figured that about the fish, but I figured I'd ask as I'm a bit of a fish person. 

So on the bacteria, it's possible but comes down to not enough research to reliably make much of a change? But it would be possible to do trial and error in a garage lab scale? That sounds like a good enough chance for me if I understood that correctly. There will never be enough information if no one experiments with it. I assume that means what I'd originally said probably won't be possible in the near future, at least by me, but it is possible to make at least small changes on the scale of single cell organisms and bacteria with trial and error? 

[Avery louie]

The zebrafish can probably be done, but you would need to talk to somone who is from a fish lab.  I get the feeling that a lot of people on this list are more versed in human bio/microbio, so we thing it is a big deal, whereas a fish researcher may not.

For your second question, I would tell you that making something glow or even produce a protein is a Big Deal.  Think of it as a "hello world" project- once you have output, and you figure out how to do some kind of input (maybe a promoter in this metaphor), that is very powerful.  Realize that while people will probably continue to trivialize "making bacteria green", you are programming microorganisms to assemble amino acids in an order that you choose, which does something cool.  now you just have to change the program to do something cooler.

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[Josiah Zayner]

Depends what you want to do with a zebrafish but most genetics is done through morpholino microinjection not quite garage lab doable on even a decent budget.

Evolution took billions of years for a reason. Removal or addition of a single protein can kill an organism. Single amino acid mutations in proteins can kill organisms. 

Who knows if it is possible to synthetically evolve Bacteria into something else but a large portion of their genetic circuits and proteins are completely different, they don't have a nucleus, have different membranes, no mitochondria, blah blah. It is not quite impossible but very improbable. You would need a very creative high throughput assay and years and years of work hours and lots of money.

[Mega]

Of course you could transform zebrafish/ frogs eggs. I'd try it with electroporation/ or lipofectamine.

But the big ethical question.... What happens to the GFP frog? You don't wanna kill it, but you also don't wanna release into the environment...