How do I get started?

[Nico B.]

I want to know everything there is to know about plants and related genetics with an emphasis on those species known to filter out particulate matter, heavy metals and air/soil borne pollutants. I've collected a plant species list and data related to their filtration rates but would like to learn to read and write DNA and make them more efficient at what they already do.

I'm new to this and wanna work from the ground up to understand whats really going on... any information, tips, resources, experiences, book recommendations, etc are highly appreciated.

Also I'm located in the SF bay area if its any consolation.

[Dakota Hamill]

Get some Wisconsin Fast Plants and some pea plants.  I also heard Mustard plants sequester heavy metals well...

Either way, the best way to learn is to do.  It's easy to get caught up in reading and writing and never actually doing.

You can get seeds for all those plants for dirt cheap, and start growing them under a light with controlled temp / water etc and measure growth rates.  Get some control plants going.

Then, make up some heavy metal solutions (Careful about what you chose, as you may have to control disposal of the waste) and design an experiment that tests the solutions on the growth of the plant, as well as processing the tissue after and testing its bio-accumulation.

Heavy metals are cheap to test for in general using Flame AA or other atomic absorption techniques, like a few dollars per metal perhaps if ordered in bulk.

Find a local lab that would let you do testing for X amount of $.

While the plants are growing and the experiment is running, read more about the specific genes/proteins/compounds responsible for heavy metal chelation and then you can worry about reading/writing DNA to modify enzymes and expression levels to increase bio-accumulation.

I'm sure there are companies out there that do it, as well as research labs, I've found reaching out to professors is a great resource, as they are usually very helpful because someone actually cares about what they are doing!

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[Nathan McCorkle]

On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 12:18 AM, Nico B.
<perpetuatet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I want to know everything there is to know about plants and related genetics
> with an emphasis on those species known to

> filter out particulate matter

Something to do with stickiness, so mucus/mucoids maybe latex and
rubber production secretion stuff. Maybe symbiotic surface organisms,
otherwise enzymatic digestion or diffusion.

> heavy metals

you're going to want to know how to look at the protein amino acids
and try to visualize how they'll electronically be configured when in
a 3D connected web (protein), and how that electronic state can bind
the electronic state of the metals (which usually have lots of
electrons in far-out electron shells).

> and air/soil borne pollutants.

Pretty much the same as above, but carbon and nitrogen have less
commonly used electron shells, so less to think
about/visualize/simulate with computer. (At least from thinking about
how an enzyme might interact)

> I've collected a plant species
> list and data related to their filtration rates but would like to learn to
> read and write DNA and make them more efficient at what they already do.
>

If you're interested in a design-based approach, study first-year
college chemistry, organic chemistry, physics would help too. If you
want to get into modelling and simulation, then you should also look
into statistics/graph-theory and computer science
courses/professors/clubs that can teach you about how to do
physics-based programming. Games often have 'physics engines' which
approximate some desired/practical level of physical simulation...
with more advanced math and the chemistry rule-set to go along with
it, this can translate to modelling electron interactions at the
reaction site of the proteins in your plant list, etc...

> I'm new to this and wanna work from the ground up to understand whats really
> going on... any information, tips, resources, experiences, book
> recommendations, etc are highly appreciated.

http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bio/books/

>
> Also I'm located in the SF bay area if its any consolation.

You have several bio labs available.
http://diyhpl.us/wiki/diybio/groups/
http://diybio.org/local/