Re: [DIYbio] How should I get strarted?

Hi Aspen!

Glad to hear you are interested in plants. Not too many plant people on the list so fresh faces are welcome. If you really want to start from the ground up, I would highly suggest learning and doing some plant tissue culture first. That is if you want a good understanding and confidence. Jumping straight into genetic engineering will leave many holes in your knowledge and skill set list. Ive been personally "mentoring" a friend off the list Alex Pfrogner with his plant based endeavors and he certainly picked up the skills quickly. Like most of us here, budget may be an issue. He managed to make a nice laminar flow hood of sorts for very cheap and began his adventures with decent speed. He may even chime in with some personal experience.

Basically you want to purchase some general lab equipment off ebay or hack some kitchen appliances to do the job.

A general plant lab would need as follows:

Glass or autoclavable plasticware, beakers, flasks, graduated cylinders, volumetric flasks, etc
Hotplate/stirrer (more important is the stirrer)
Autoclave or large pressure cooker (very very important)
Culture vessels like canning jars with lids or my personal favorite ketchup cups
Microwave
Fine tip metal tweezers
Scalpel blades and handles (i like #10 and 11)
Cool white fluorescent lights
Outlet timers
Water distilled and tap
Soil (personal fave is sunshine mix #1)
Seeds (i love tobacco but i can share others too)
Ph meter or strips (cheap meter with ATC or temp compensation will do well)
Light meter
Sterile air box or laminar flow hood (DIY or ebay) VERY important

Chemicals are as follows:
MS Media w/ Gamborg vitamins (phytotechlabs.com or plantmedia.com)
Sucrose (table sugar)
Agar (plant agar or health food store stuff)
MES buffer (for long term cultures and pH stability
BAP hormone 6-benzylaminopurine (shoot inducing hormone)
NAA hormone alpha-napthalineacetic acid (rooting hormone)
Antibiotics like augmentin (fish antibiotics is my little secret to cheap effective antibiotics)

If you want help starting, facebook msg or email me off list and i can advise on how to start. You can ask alex for an idea of the difficulty time investment, etc. im always glad to help a newbie. Good luck and dont give up!


Sent from my iPad

> On Aug 28, 2014, at 10:28 AM, Aspen Young <dashfire61@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks Nathan, I'll make sure to look into these!
>
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