Homework

Weekly homework submissions:

  • Week 1 HW: Principles and Practices

    The halfpipe of Doom- How to grow good? For the first weeks lecture we had an introduction to the fundamental principles of synthetic biology and the HTGAA program. The focus of the lecture was on the governance and ethics of synthetic biology. David S. Kong discussed the balance between decentralized and centralized synBio development and the importance of thrust (something we are lacking these days). As a global community we have largely agreed to certain rules (e.g. bioweapon treaty 1975) however emerging synBio technologies also allow a much broader audience to participate in the development (e.g. community labs/ biohackers) that might not necessary always align with large governmental policies. He draws the parallel to how the early governance of the internet have allowed for a decentralized scaling that have contributed to an increased “computer literacy”. This might allow us to make better (although not perfect) personal decisions for how to use this new technology. Coming from a background of community focused biolab practice this was an interesting topic and made me think of the importance for a global bio-literacy. It also got me to think about the importance to apply these principals in a simple enough way that it doesn’t stifle participation.

  • Week 2 HW: dna read write and edit

    Part 1: Benchling & In-silico Gel Art My original idea was to make a circle, but after some trial and error I realized it would be a bit too complicated—so I settled on an arch (bridge). 1a) I imported the sequence for lambda DNA. 1b) In Benchling, I ran all 7 restriction enzymes we had available to see which ones gave:

  • Week 03 — Opentrons: Automation Art + Post-Lab Questions

    Part 1 — Automation Art (OT-2 “printing” a design) This week I designed a microscope icon as “automation art” and converted it into a grid of XY dot coordinates that can be dispensed by the Opentrons OT-2 onto an agar plate.

  1. Design → coordinate map I started from the course Automation Art Interface, which makes it easy to draw a dot pattern on a circular “canvas.”