Science

On Sunday, April 1, 2012 1:30:11 PM UTC-4, Tom Randall wrote:

(1) Is anyone actually doing DIY work on synthetic biology?  What makes it DIY (e.g. taking place in a community lab)?  What makes it synbio (and not just biology or molecular biology)?

Thanks,

Jason

I have a lab at home and will likely soon be doing something that loosely might be considered synbio, but only because I intend on ordering a sequence from one of the companies like Blue Heron.
Specifically the project is that I have a morphological mutant in my organism of interest, an ascomycete fungus Neurospora crassa. I am interested in determining the gene responsible for the phenotype of this mutation. It has been genetically mapped so I know within 20-40 kb where it is. I have in the past done Sanger sequencing on a candidate gene, which found no mutation in or around that particular gene so decided to simply get the whole genome sequenced. Hopefully then I can compare that sequence to reference and find a SNP/indel responsible. If that is possible, I intend to order a sequence of ~ 1 kb around this mutation, including the candidate mutant allele, and transform this into a strain with the wild type allele of this candidate gene in order to generate a replacement of the wt allele with the mutant allele by homologous recombination in order to re-create the original phenotype and thus confirm (or not) the genetic lesion that resulted in the original mutant allele. I have sent the DNA from this mutant strain to Operon, but only last week so the sequencing is still is in progress. I would say this is only loosely synbio because I am simply going to be using a synthetic construct as a convenient  tool in the context of what is really a molecular genetics/bioinformatics project.

On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 7:33 AM, Ali Tarek <alitarek345@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I am a senior Pharmacy and Biotechnology student at the German University In
> Cairo,i am very interested in this Initiative and would like to know what is
> required from degrees ,experience and resources to start a local DIYbio
> community here in Egypt, i have been part of several community and global
> initiatives here but not scientific ones.

Ali, I recommend starting with reading the FAQ.

http://diyhpl.us/wiki/diybio/faq

For starting groups with shared labs, I think the most invaluable
resource is from the hackerspace community.

http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Documentation
https://labitat.dk/wiki/How_to_start_a_hackerspace
http://hackspace.org.uk/view/Starting_a_Hackerspace

Also check if you have nearby groups:

http://diyhpl.us/wiki/diybio/groups
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_ALL_Hacker_Spaces

You don't need to create a shared lab space of course, perhaps you
just want to know people in your area to collaborate on projects
in-person, etc.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

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