The inability of local water plants to remove endocrine disrupting hormones from the water treatments, has brought forth intersex bass in the Potomac River. Perhaps there is a way to create a microbe to bind with excess hormones such as estrogen to capture or transform the disruptors. Anyone have any ideas on how we might proceed? Could be in humanities best interest to clean this stuff up before we enter a Children of Man scenario.

Already practicing with the search functions of the standard parts registry and find that there are 3 Estrogen Promoters listed..

Related Project in Washington State

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Court Hearing Arguments Against Patenting Human Genes

4. April 2010 by admin.

Well the case has finally made it it into the courts, to challenge the the idiocy of Biotech Copyright Patents. http://www.aclu.org/free-speech-womens-rights/aclu-and-pubpat-argue-today-patents-breast-cancer-genes-are-unconstitution

This could be the beginning of a truly open-source movement in the genetics field, overturning 30 years of bad law regarding patentable life.

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We’re In DIY-Bio iGEM 2010

20. March 2010 by admin.

This just in from Dr. Burkett.

“I also set up a course (BIOL 281-Cooperative Education: Biology (Section PZ1; CRN# 52644) with a special note section that it is for the iGEM competition. It is a one credit course so the financials shouldn’t be too onerous for anyone ( about $100.00 for in county). If we could work out a way that Towson students or Howard students, or UMBC students could get a credit for the course that would be great. I don’t think there will be any requirement for mentors to pay the fee. I’m going to look into some mechanism so that qualified mentors can have better access to the lab-not sure what that would be right now but I’ll work on it.”

So we’re in. We’ll be holding a second meeting 8 pm on Monday, April 12th in Rm D206: CCBC- Catonsville’s Biotechnology lab.

This will be an opportunity to differentiate DIY-Bio vs. iGEM 2010 team and how these projects will interact to feed the community of interested.

Note that DIY-Bio communities from Boston, NYC, and LA are also attempting to get their teams in. If you thought this was just for kids, it’s time to step up and represent BioMore.

Suggested Agenda items to be considered.

DIY-Bio projects (Re-imagining the design of the Sythesizer/Microarray)

iGEM competition projects and interactions

Outreach opportunities:Discussing Robotfest Table

Considerations for Lecture Series / Workshops

Employment Opportunities / Networking

If I can get a decent headcount, I’ll try and clear the supplies we’ll need to do the DNA extraction, otherwise we’ll save it for Robotfest demonstrations.

WOOHOO!

E-mail me via admin@genoblasts.com

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Momentum Builds

19. March 2010 by admin.

So there is certainly signs of momentum building.

This just in from Dr. Tom Burkett, our main mentor contact and head of the biotechnology department at CCBC-Catonsville.

“I’ve got a 1 credit course set up for the summer. It’s BIOL 281-Cooperative Education -Biology. There’s a note describing the course as for the iGEM competition. The course should be open for registration next week. I’m also close to finalizing the funding for the entry fee-again I should know by early next week. If possible I want to get everything registered before spring break. I talked with the iGEM people a bit today and they had no problems with DYI-Bio participation as long as they are registered at an accredited institution.

Towson is in, and drumming up support. I think there may be more interest and participation once we have the infrastructure all set up. ”

—

Patrick also sent word of further Towson interest from Elizabeth Goode, as well as Jim Saunders, who runs the molecular bio, biochemistry and bioinformatics program at towson, and he seemed cautiously enthused in his response:

“…I told Tom that I would be glad to help out as well, although the nature of the project might require that we seek specific expertise in targeted area. Both Tom and I are in a position to offer research credit for students engaging in the competition, however, we are hopeful that we might be able to find funding sources for student stipends if we engage in this activity in the future. Please let me know what the next step would be.”

We have also had contact from Prof. Lindahl and Asst. Prof. Erill from UMBC, who are still gauging the level of interest and involvement yet seem enthused.

HCCC is out as an institutional support, however Engineering Professor, Scott Foerster still remains interested in mentoring if he can.

The timing seems to be perfect for the implantation of these seeds. Two days after announcing our exploratory meeting, I was told of an organizational meeting of the DC DIY-Bio enthusiasts. This was followed by contacting security expert Piers Millet of iGEM, who put me in contact with Agent You at the FBI in DC… He just happened to be holding a webcast devoted to these issues with Jason from DIY-Bio Boston, the next day in Washington.

I also held a video interview with reporter Michelle Williams of National Journal who is doing a piece on synbio and look forward to seeing the results of her report when it’s finished.

I was also contacted by organizers of Boston, NYC, and LA: DIY-Bio groups and they also have intentions to enter iGEM possibly with similar strategies of inter-institutional support. Due to this level of interest, I have heard rumor of iGEM creating a DIY community category.

We’ll see.

Optimistically,

-Ryan

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Want to build

16. March 2010 by admin.

So guys what do you think about building one of these - An inkjet based Open Source MicroArray

http://genomebiology.com/2004/5/8/R58/

David wrote me about the upcoming Maker Faire Robot Competition that will be down in Linthicum towards the end of April. I agree with him that it could be a unique opportunity to interface with other DIY minded individuals and think we might want to jockey a booth.

Also if you haven’t checked out the primer lately definately click through and check out this wonderful intro that SynBerc has put together http://www.biobuilder.org/ it really brings the concepts of synthetic biology component system into a layman’s frame of reference.

Virginia’s been busy and are responsible for this opensource designer for synthetic biologicals.

GenoCad OpenSource Synbio Design Software from VBI http://www.genocad.org/

Some DNA Origami OpenSource Software

http://cadnano.org/gallery.html

And another OpenSource Software tool for Nanosynthesis with DNA

http://www.nanoengineer-1.com/content/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=34&Itemid=35

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Great Audio Podcasts on SynBio from Keck Futures

16. March 2010 by admin.

I’ve been listening to this series of podcasts all night. Joe Palka from NPR talks with a number of Lead Scientists in the field of Synthetic Biology. They’re great.

I’ve already written a few of the folks to see if we can create some lines of communication.

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BioMore Exploratory Meeting 3/8/10 @ 8

2. March 2010 by admin.

Initial meeting will be held @ 8pm on March 8th, in Room d-206, Biotechnology lab of the CCBC-Catonsville campus.

Try and be prompt, Dr. Burkett has kindly let us use the space that will be made available this summer to us, but the meeting must end in an hour, so he can take care of his other pressing engagements. If we want to head to a local pub/coffee joint after 9, then the folks can peel off into smaller discussions.

If we can gather a core-group of committed team members we’ll need to press hard on fundraising to make the deadline of the 21st to buy in on the less expensive registration. If we don’t make that date we’ll have until May 1st ,but at a slightly higher cost. Regardless of whether you can make the full time commitment to participate as a team member, please feel free to stay connected with us. We look forward to helping the DIY-Bio community of Maryland develop their passion for amateur science and garage genetics. Learn about safety and security issues, as well as the types of equipment and processes used in “Cooking up New Lifeforms and Cellular Circuitry”.

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