[DIYbio] Updates on Plant Gene Gun Progress

Pardon the delay in posting the how-to on my blog. I need to do more experiments to ensure it wasn't a fluke or some weird artifact from the reagents themselves. Granted nothing really glows green in a plant under UV. I did however realize that the "control" I used in my photo was a previously failed shot. I noticed a faint glow in the midrib and was more evident in Simon's contrast and brightness manipulations. My apologies for the bad science, it should have been more organized. Granted this was a quick and dirty pilot exeriment and I wanted to share the news ASAP since I really thought it was NOT going to work on my first attempt.

I finished a decent draft of the assembly instructions, parts list, and some background as well as all necessary citations to key papers in the study but it needs more polishing and, like everyone's pilot experiments, need more data. Ill keep you all posted on updates as it happens and will also publish a draft prototype of a bench top vacuum chamber model a la BioRad's PDS-1000/He. Also cheap and simple. Again, my humblest apologies for the delay. Ill get to it asap especially since a bunch of you showed genuine interest in the device. Thanks!

PS was thinking of a cheesy name for the device line. My first thought was the WolfJet Mark 1. Tungsten is sometimes called wolfram which translates to wolf's foam. Weird...

Sebastian S. Cocioba
CEO & Founder
New York Botanics, LLC
Plant Biotech R&D