I attended a Bio Hacking Workshop with Raphael Kim a bio hacker – designer, I had no idea what this was but thought it would be interesting. Prior to the workshop I did some research on Raphael and found his work very interesting and thought provoking.
An example of Raphael Kim’s work – Microbial prints of Drachma note close-up
Photo taken from – http://biohackanddesign.com/portfolio/biohack-the-economy/
The workshop was split into 2 sessions in the first session we collected DNA strawberries, the strawberries where crushed, the juice was extracted and chilled neat alcohol was added. The DNA strands could clearly be seen (this was very exciting I had no idea this was possible)
Strawberry DNA in vials Photo showing DNA strands (cloudy area)
Blobs of strawberry DNA
Raphael explained the strawberry DNA could be dried out on a low heat and then harvested, however I think I left mine in the oven for to long and it dried out.
In the second part of the workshop we set out to genetically modify E coli bacteria with genetic material from a jelly fish !!!
The Ecoli bacteria had been special modified to prevent it from causing any health risk if it escaped (it would quickly die in the air). We mixed the E coli with the fluorescent gene from a jelly fish spread the matter onto an agar plate, the plates where incubated overnight.
My agar plate prior to incubation.
In the next session we where able to view our agar plates with microscope made from a web cam, however the webcams would not work properly and we where not able to connect them up to our laptops to take photos , Raphael managed to get his lap top to connect and we where able to view our plates. My plate had grown E coli but did not fluoresce, I had not managed to genetically modify bacteria.
Learning to take forward..
Continue to take up opportunities to learn and explore
Look across a wider range of disciplines for inspiration