Bio Heath Kit

[Mackenzie Cowell]

We need a heath kit for biology. Why isn't there one? Are the
BioBrick kits iGEM ships out each year sufficient? I think not - they
are the modular parts we want to use to build things, but they don't
come with an instruction manual. Maybe we should work on that in the
first couple Boston DIYBIO meetings.

-Mac

[William Heath]

That would be amazing, my last name is Heath so I for sure want to help :>

-Tim

P.S.

I know we can use some ideas from:

http://biohack.sourceforge.net/

I guess the fundamental things we need are:

1.  Microscope (to see the cells and their fluorescing
2.  petri dishes
3.  culture to grow the cells in
4.  cells to put the dna in
5.  dna to put in the cells

What else do we need?  I assume most of the experiments we would do would use fluorescing since that is the cheapest way to see if a gene/protein is actually working right?  Or do you recommend another way that is not too expensive?

[Kim]

Hey guys,

Using fluorescence can be difficult. If you are working with yeast,
the expression levels can be low enough that you need a fluorescence
microscope to see whats going on. Maybe that would be an interesting
project: How to modify a cheap microscope to see fluorescence.
Failing that, RFP expression in E. coli is visible to the naked eye if
you are using a strong enough promoter. Another reporter would be to
use the Lac operon to produce a drop in pH in the growth medium (for
liquid cultures). This method only needs a relatively inexpensive pH
meter or even disposable litmus paper strips, although it would be
difficult to get more than a yes/no answer without being clever.

Something that is very important to any kind of microbiology work is
the ability to keep everything sterile. Ideally this is done using an
autoclave, but for sterilizing petri dishes/anything metal, you could
feasibly use 70% ethanol and a flame.

You also need the ability to select which cells have the DNA that
you want in them and which don't. This is usually done using drug
resistance plasmids in E. coli, but beta-gal selection might be a more
feasible and cheap option for do-it-yourself work. Cheers,

Kim

[Bryan Bishop]

On Tuesday 08 April 2008, Kim wrote:
> Hey guys,
>
> Using fluorescence can be difficult. If you are working with
> yeast, the expression levels can be low enough that you need a
> fluorescence microscope to see whats going on. Maybe that would be
> an interesting project: How to modify a cheap microscope to see
> fluorescence. Failing that, RFP expression in E. coli is visible to

http://www.microscopeforums.com/f7/fluorescence-microscopy-35.html
http://heybryan.org/instrumentation/instru.html

What sort of specs do we need? Is this close to basic microscopy?

> the naked eye if you are using a strong enough promoter. Another
> reporter would be to use the Lac operon to produce a drop in pH in
> the growth medium (for liquid cultures). This method only needs a
> relatively inexpensive pH meter or even disposable litmus paper
> strips, although it would be difficult to get more than a yes/no
> answer without being clever.

Maybe a chromatography-related solution, where a chemical reaction with
the litmus paper causes a coloration change that would otherwise be
unnoticable.

> Something that is very important to any kind of microbiology work is
> the ability to keep everything sterile. Ideally this is done using
> an autoclave, but for sterilizing petri dishes/anything metal, you
> could feasibly use 70% ethanol and a flame.

Yes, any information on doing your own clean room?

> You also need the ability to select which cells have the DNA that
> you want in them and which don't. This is usually done using drug
> resistance plasmids in E. coli, but beta-gal selection might be a
> more feasible and cheap option for do-it-yourself work. Cheers,

I've heard about antibody resistance in ecoli, but what's beta-gal
selection?

- Bryan
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