Re: [DIYbio] I'd like some advice please

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Hey Jonny,
Here's some advice, but take it with a pinch of salt as it's just my
opinion.

> I even have a facebook page called Jonny Science although its not
> that popular yet.

Facebook is a terrible place to publish new content. Most stuff on
Facebook is fan-pages for real content elsewhere, and with good reason.
I'd strongly suggest that if you want to get any readership outside
your immediate circle of friends, you go to wordpress.com and set up a
blog there. Wordpress blogs can be modified so heavily with plugins
that they can end up looking nothing like a blog, so if you're looking
for something more like a website/photo gallery, you can do that to.
Just please, don't publish on Facebook! :)

> building a home sized nuclear power plant

If you search around, there are some great news articles about a fellow
who tried just that, years ago. To satisfy his obsession with getting a
sample of every known element on the periodic table (this was, I think,
before widespread knowledge of ultra-exotic
won't-exist-for-longer-than-picoseconds elements), he built a breeder
reactor in his shed. The ensuing hullabaloo over "contamination" (of
which there was almost certainly plenty) went way out of proportion to
the real risks, and his neighbourhood ended up being evacuated during
the cleanup of his shed-experiment. :)

SCIENCE!

> One thing I want to do is try to create a genetically engineered
> bacteria that expels O2.

Well, you probably know already that natural O2-creating bacteria
exist, and are abundant; cyanobacteria. Often called "blue-green
algae", they were responsible for one of the most widespread
mass-extinctions in Earth's history, because at the time very few
organisms could survive elevated oxygen!

There's a lot of research into ways to make cyanobacteria and "true
algae" consume CO2 faster, to try and kickstart a "bioremediation"
revolution against global warming and to create more biofuel, faster,
and more cheaply. This is a fascinating area to study, so don't be
scared off by competition! Photosynthesis is a fascinating system, and
different plants, algae and bacteria have evolved a great many systems
that could potentially be combined to increase their efficiency.

> lab. I'm a dirt poor DIY with only $400 to my name but I want to take
> steps to change the world somehow. Maybe make myself a superhuman on
> the way somehow.

You're in good company; a bunch of the regulars on this list are
transhumanists, and (as far as I can see) are lurking here with exactly
that intention. :)

> Wouldn't genetic manipulations be able to give everyone such strength?

Cautionary tale on self-engineering; we're not quite there yet.
Although there are rumours and allegations that some athletes have
invested in genetic engineering/cell therapies to enhance their natural
levels of erythropoitin/etc, I have my doubts. In an early study on
EPO-enhancement in baboons (why must we study on other Apes, ffs?), a
citation for which I can't give you (it was in a lecture I received
years ago), they shivved in an extra gene under a stronger promoter for
erythropoitin into the unfortunate baboons, and observed to see if
their stamina improved. Well, it did, but the baboons also became
highly prone to spontaneous blood clots, and had to be kept on
anti-clotting agents for the rest of their (doubtless short) lives.

Gene therapy is improving of course, and for some medical applications
it's already a practical solution where drug therapies fall short,
although it's still not used widely. But, like limb prostheses, while
the therapy is good if you have no other options, it's still not a good
idea if there's nothing wrong with you.

My advice is, grow your skills, lab and equipment set organically. With
$400 you can't repeat every igem project ever, but you can buy basic
equipment to start doing more modest experiments to develop your skills
and understanding. As you get more skill, equipment and resources, you
can start building up to more ambitious experiments.

If genetics is your goal, start with microbiology. Take your $400,
invest in the minimum you'll need to start teaching yourself
sterile/anexic culture of bacteria, yeast or plant tissues:
* Bunsen burner; you can get camping-gas-cartridge models from some
good brewing suppliers like brouwland.com (EU).
* Lab glassware: Likewise available from good brewshops like
brouwland.com, you'll want petri dishes, test tubes with caps, and
preferably some 10ml pippettes and a pippette filler.
* A pressure cooker: see if you know anyone who uses these and can show
you how to use one of these safely, because instructions vary by
model, and nasty steam-burns are easy if you do things wrong. You'll
need one of these for sterilising things.
* Pet Heater Mat and Thermostat, and a large polystyrene box, to make a
crude 30C incubator. Add some shallow dishes of water with copper
sulphate in them (as a biocide; recycle by redissolving with more
water, as it's toxic to wildlife when discarded) to keep things moist
and prevent your samples drying out.
* Food ingredients to make broths and agars: agar powder, low-salt
yeast extract, soy protein isolate, skimmed milk powder, glucose
powder, deionised water.
* Later, you'll want a centrifuge. You can get a safe, reliable one
from NCBE in the UK. I also sell a somewhat hazardous rotor that you
can attach to a dremel which, if you so choose, can be used as a
centrifuge at your own risk. It's powerful, but wear goggles and
don't blame me if anything goes wrong! Also, it'll kill your dremel
eventually. :) (never print in PLA, or it'll explode if you use it)

When you can grow bacteria, you can start learning to extract their
DNA, and then to put new DNA into them. Once you're at this level, you
ought to be able to take a plasmid like pGREEN (a plasmid that makes
bacteria fluorescent, available widely on this list and from
educational suppliers) and put it into your cells, before you progress
onwards.

From there, you've got your core set of skills: you can grow bacteria
and keep them pure/sterile, you can isolate plasmid DNA from them, and
you can put plasmid DNA into them. NOW you can consider your own
Synthetic Biology experiments; you study existing systems, combine
them, use good software to optimise them as needed, and fork out a
bunch of money to order some DNA never-before-seen. And then you find
out if it works or not. Probably not. So you try again until something
works.

It's a long road, but it's really rewarding, and fun. You never look
at the world the same way once you actually *work with* microbes. And,
along the way, you're far from unlikely to end up learning other random
skills. I ended up learning a lot about design and 3D printing in
creating my Dremelfuge, programming when creating PySplicer, and
bureaucracy/legislation when applying for a license to biohack in
Ireland. It's all worthwhile.

Good luck!

On Wed, 31 Jul 2013 17:32:58 -0700 (PDT)
Jonny Scott <redravengod900@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey, my name is Jonny Scott. I love science and I even have a
> facebook page called Jonny Science although its not that popular yet.
> So basically, I'm wanting advice on how to get started. I consider
> myself an inventor tho I've never actually made anything except my 3d
> printer which had instructions but I have all these ideas. I love
> trying to think of ways to solve everyday problems like how to make
> ethanol cheaper as a fuel source or building a home sized nuclear
> power plant or a nuclear car. One thing I want to do is try to create
> a genetically engineered bacteria that expels O2. So where do I
> start? How can I start genetic engineering at home or how do I make a
> lab. I'm a dirt poor DIY with only $400 to my name but I want to take
> steps to change the world somehow. Maybe make myself a superhuman on
> the way somehow. I found this group through biohacking on youtube
> which seemed fascinating. Theirs a guy who can rip phone books and
> bend cast iron featured on stan lee's superhumans. Wouldn't genetic
> manipulations be able to give everyone such strength? There's just so
> much I want to know in this world, so much I want to do and I dont
> know how to begin. College isn't getting me anywhere. Its just not
> fast enough for teaching me what I want to know. I had to spend an
> entire semester learning Ohms law in a class as a prerequisite for
> pre-engineering. How lame is that? Anyway, any advice is welcome such
> as ways to build a chemistry kit on a shoestring budget or how to do
> genetic experiments. I just have a thirst for knowledge so tell me
> anything thats cool or useful please.
>