Homework
Weekly homework submissions:
Week 1 HW: Principles and Practices
A1. I want develop a living biological tool that works like a chromatography instrument. I have been thinking since a long time that what if we could use 3D bioprinting to create a living tissue (I like to call it an ‘organstrument’) that can selectively bind and separate ions/molecules. I propose it could work similar to a ion-exchange / affinity chromatography columns but instead of using mechanical parts, it would be bio-engineered. It would be made of cells and biomaterials that do the separation biologically.
Week 2 HW: DNA Read, Write & Edit
Week 2 : Pre-HW Professor Jacobson: A1. DNA polymerase with proofreading has an error rate of about 1 error per 10⁶ bases (10⁻⁶). This is due to its proofreading and exonuclease activity. The human genome is about 3.2 billion base pairs. At a raw error rate of 10⁻⁶, replication would introduce thousands of errors per genome copy, which is unacceptable. Biology deals with this via multiple layers of correction, DNA Polymerase proofreading, post replication mismatch repair and other such systems.
Assignment : Python Script for Opentrons Artwork I had to write a Python script for a art design. I chose to create a silhouette of the Indian subcontinent, with my city being highlighted. I did that using the Opentrons Artwork website. I thought I will make a pattern of sorts with code but I realized that would time consuming and not very symbolic as such. I got a clipart of India from google and cropped it and then used that too generate my artwork. It didn’t look very good, I had to fiddle around with the contrast, brightness and other values to make it work. It still wasn’t looking how I’d expected it too. I decided to redo it.