That probably has to be one of the first steps, like building a computer
that makes building computers easier. But using the hobby to make the
hobby easier does not widen the appeal to a broader audience, which is
needed for a number of reasons, such as bringing down the cost, getting
more brainpower to work on the problems, and changing the public mindset
to be more favorable to the hobby.
If we could make it easy to create bugs that produce things that lots of people
want, we get a larger audience. Glowing fish and bunnies are already out there,
but we can add yogurt that glows, yeast with extra vitamins or sweet peptides,
bugs that sequester heavy metals, bugs that produce electricity, or hydrogen,
DNA that folds into metamaterials with negative refraction or cloaking effects,
new antibiotics, cheap DNA barcoding to do biodiversity studies, software for
analyzing personal genomes, designer bacteriophages, home analysis of gut
flora, there are all kinds of things to look into.
How about a bug that has a knockout for a particular vitamin? Spit into a cup
of it and chart the growth curve to see how much of that vitamin was in you.
Maybe we already have something that just needs some marketing to take off.
How many kids would buy yogurt that made their farts smell like bananas?
:-)
-----
Get a free science project every week! "http://scitoys.com/newsletter.html"On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 1:12 PM, Cory Tobin <cory.tobin@gmail.com> wrote:
> My suggestions would be:I like the idea of people being able to produce their own enzymes. It
> - Enzymes commonly used in the lab that would save a lot of money when
> produced by yourself, such as DNA restriction and polymerase, some are
> available
would be great if we could produce our own Taq, ligase and the four
BioBrick restriction enzymes (EcoRI, XbaI, SpeI, PstI). With those 6
enzymes one could not only work with most BioBrick parts but also
bootstrap their lab and produce any additional enzymes they need.
My main concern with this right now is the lack of inexpensive methods
for purifying the protein. Most column based methods are expensive
(NTA, etc). But I don't have much experience purifying enzymes aside
from using kits. Maybe someone with more experience knows of an
inexpensive method for producing enzymes pure enough to be used for
BioBricks? This project http://2009.igem.org/Team:Washington/Project
looked really promising but it looks like they never really got the
system working and quit working on it.
-cory
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group.
To post to this group, send email to diybio@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/diybio?hl=en.
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group.
To post to this group, send email to diybio@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/diybio?hl=en.
0 comments:
Post a Comment