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BioCurious, a hackerspace for bio now open to public
- chrisbennet 15y agoSure, the first zombie apocalypse will start this way but it is so cool! Big props for starting this.
- lucisferre 15y agoYeah I was about to say: nothing can possibligh go wrong... Possibly go wrong. That's the first thing that's ever gone wrong...
- tejaswiy 15y agoImplanting Jellyfish DNA in Bacteria to make them glow is Hello World for Biotech !? Mind = Blown.
- Vargas 15y agoYes, it is. I was involved in this kind of things before dropping my Ph.D. Have a look at biobricks, for example: http://biobricks.org/ http://biobricks.org/
- mbreese 15y agoWell, kinda... making them glow is just being a bit fancy. And you need a light at a particular wavelength to get them to glow. I assume they inserted Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP). The traditional "Hello World" that I learned was to insert a functioning lacZ plasmid into a mutant E. coli strain that had their lacZ gene damaged. When you do this, you introduce a functioning lacZ gene into the E. coli, which will cause the colony to turn blue in the presence of X-gal. It is a nice and cheap way to do screens... but it isn't nearly as cool as glowing super-bugs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_white_screen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_white_screen
- possibilistic 15y agoLacZ is definitely Hello World in microbiology. From there you typically scale up with inducible/repressible promoters. Ara comes to mind. GFP is a fun product to learn hydrophobic column chromatography. I still think it's best to start with nucleic acid separation before protein separation, though. Aside from yeasts, there's no way you can do Eukaryotic stuff easily. You'd need a laminar flow hood and very sterile incubators.
- nazar 15y agoGel electorphoresis might be fun as well. At least my first run was fun for me :)
- bedris 15y agoJust be careful with the ethidium bromide.
- nazar 15y agoThat what lab assistant usually says. At uni we used some blue florescent dye that apparently got ionically bonded to P group of DNA backbone. It was completely safe(not carcinogenic). I can't remember the name of the dye, but results with EtBr were much clearer.
- tomkinstinch 15y agoGelRed is another safe one. It is designed so that it will not cross cell membranes. I don't think it intercalates either.
- RoyalSWiSH 15y agoWhat about Methylen blue? Do you guys have an idea if this will work? Read it somewhere. But i don't think it is florescent.
- nazar 15y ago
- tito 15y agoYea, it's super fun, even kids can do the experiment. Here's some pics from our last Glowing Cells class! http://www.meetup.com/BioCurious/photos/3739322/#61569752 http://www.meetup.com/BioCurious/photos/3739322/#61569752 Tito
- aantix 15y agoCheck out their calendar; on Oct 26th "Advanced Personal Genomics". http://bit.ly/o5rUrT http://bit.ly/o5rUrT "...on how to hack your own genomic data, in this hands-on-computer class, where you can use your own 23andMe data (or someone else's) to see which of your biochemical pathways are the most unique, what percentage of the NEanderthal genome you share, and other interesting stuff. Bring your laptop and your 23andMe data, if you have it." Sweet, sign me up! I've been looking for an opportunity to dive deeper into this data, but being a beginner, it can be a bit overwhelming. http://biocurious.org/classes/ http://biocurious.org/classes/
- tito 15y agoHey! I just added a signup on meetup for you -- thanks for reminding me :) Advanced Personal Genomics (hacker friendly!) http://www.meetup.com/BioCurious/events/37411362/ http://www.meetup.com/BioCurious/events/37411362/ Tito
- akaalias 15y agoFor NYC people, there is http://genspace.org/ http://genspace.org/ which has intro courses several times a year. You will also make bacteria glow and smell like bananas!
- iqster 15y agoBump! I ran into them at the local Maker Faire and got some DNA extracted. Will be taking the synthetic bio class starting tomorrow!
- dfischer 15y agoBy any chance do you know if there's anything like this in L.A?
- healthystealthy 15y agoL.A. Biohackers. http://www.biohackers.la/ http://www.biohackers.la/ Great people
- tito 15y ago<3 Genspace
- jfarmer 15y agoIf you're into biohacking you should check out http://cofactorbio.com/ http://cofactorbio.com/ They sell a kit that lets you do a 23-and-me style analysis in your own home. An article in Wired about them and others working on similar efforts: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/08/mf_diylab/ http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/08/mf_diylab/
- mynegation 15y agoIt may warrant its own 'Ask HN' entry but I will piggy-back on that thread. What are the books that one should read if one wants to start bio-hacking? Programming and CS books were discussed here many times: K&R, SICP, Corman etc, but what about biotech/life sciences? I've tried some O'Reilly books like "Perl/Python for bioinformatics" but they are really for biologists trying to program, not the other way around.
- nazar 15y agoI was IBO(International Biology Olympiad) participant during high school, majored in Bioengineering and now a full time web programmer(entrepreneur). Knowing both domains pretty well(better than average person) I have no idea what kind of books should one read, or what kind of approach should one take in order to start biohacking. If any bioprogrammes around here, share some thoughts and recomendation.
- iqster 15y agoIf you are a complete newbie, I'd recommend "Cartoon Guide To Genetics". Sadly, it is over a decade old at this point. If anyone has a more contemporary reading list, I would also be interested.
- nazar 15y agoI believe general biology genetics would be more than enough to get into the business. And for an average hacker, those concepts won't be hard to consume. Campbell-Reece Biology book(just the genetics part) might be the right choice.
- hbien 15y agoI'm actually trying to get into bioinformatics myself. Here are some of the resources I've been using: - Khan Academy (Biology, Chemistry, Statistics, Probability) - Molecular and Cell Biology for Dummies <-- includes overview of lab techniques like PCR and electrophoresis - Bioinformatics for Dummies - R Cookbook - Molecular Biology of the Cell <-- expensive textbook, very detailed I was pretty surprised to see a lot of stats being used. I'm sure other people can recommend better resources for bio-hacking instead of bioinformatics.
- mbreese 15y agoDoes anyone know what type of equipment they have? What about consumables (enzymes, tubes, etc...). I'd love to try a few things at the bench, but would need to know what to bring. I'm a bit curious though as to whether or not they should have an IRB or some sort of rules about what types of experiments can go on there...
- tito 15y agoHi! Here's a list of the equipment available today: pipettes, pipette tips, realtime PCR machine, OpenPCR PCR machine, incubator, shaking water bath, vortexers, gel electrophoresis boxes. If you don't have an experiment in mind, we have lots of awesome classes where you can do things like sequence your own DNA and make glowing cells: http://meetup.com/biocurious http://meetup.com/biocurious Tito co-founder BioCurious
- nazar 15y agoHi. Horses are very important animals in where i live(We even have ministry of horses...). So me and one friend of mine tried to isolate DNA from best horse breeds and then make a database, and later mine that database to perform selection predictions by computer... Its a big project and founded by gvt. I am not a part of it, my friend just consults me from time to time, since I am both acquainted with programming and biology. We are stuck with DNA isolation from horse blood right now. Do you think this kind of experiment would be interesting?
- mbreese 15y agoIs there a veterinary school near you (Turkmenistan)? If so, this is your best bet. They should have the equipment to do proper DNA isolation from blood. (Something like this will help: Qiagen DNeasy Blood and Tissue kit [1]) What you'll probably want to do is high-throughput DNA sequencing and then map the sequences to the Horse genome [2]. Then you'll be able to compare the variations from various breeds. But this is a pretty large project. [1] http://www.qiagen.com/products/genomicdnastabilizationpurification/dneasytissuesystem/dneasybloodtissuekit.aspx#Tabs=t0 http://www.qiagen.com/products/genomicdnastabilizationpurifi... [2] http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Horsemap/ http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Horsemap/ (I think)
- flipbrad 15y agothe london hackspace is trying its hand at PCR and algal biodiesel
- reasonattlm 15y agoIf you want to learn more, you might hang out at the DIYbio list - most of the BioCurious folk post there. http://groups.google.com/group/diybio http://groups.google.com/group/diybio
- healthystealthy 15y agoWe also post heaps more at http://groups.google.com/group/biocurious http://groups.google.com/group/biocurious
- dillona 15y agoThis looks really great! Congratulations on the launch. Does anyone know if anything like this exists in central Florida?
- benatkin 15y agoA play on the phrase bi-curious? Wow.
- sgt 15y agoI was about to comment on that but I thought I would be too down-voted!
- ajays 15y ago"Play" ?? That's what I read it as and I was, like, wow, what is this all about? Got my attention!
- PatrikD 15y agoPart of our motto is "Experiment with friends!" :-) Yes, very tongue-in-cheek. If I remember correctly, in one of the videos Eri says something like "I experimented a little in college, but it never really went anywhere". :-D
- skeletonjelly 15y agoWeren't they worried about being one letter away from "bicurious"? And to quote Seinfeld, not that there's anything wrong with that.
- benatkin 15y agoApparently not; see the reply from one of them to my top-level comment.
- PatrikD 15y agoCome check us out this Sunday at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire, if you get a chance: http://www.meetup.com/BioCurious/events/34349702/ http://www.meetup.com/BioCurious/events/34349702/ https://ebmakerfaire.wordpress.com https://ebmakerfaire.wordpress.com We'll be issuing and stamping our own version of Mitch Altman's Hackerspace Passports as well.