Homework
Weekly homework submissions:
Week 1 HW: Principles and Practices
🧬 1. First, describe a biological engineering application or tool you want to develop and why. Here are some ideas that I brainstormed: 🩹 Regenerative Medicine Autologous skin grafts to replace necrotic, cancerous, scarred, or miscoloured tissue etc Synthetic skin models for surgeons or tattoo artists to practice on Self regenerating organs (for people with damaged organs, cancer, people who need transplants i.e. bioink) Cure for frostbite → regenerating cell tissue or even whole digits or limbs! Growing teeth in a lab to replace damaged or missing teeth! Regeneration of spinal column 🧪 Cures Targeting misfolded proteins (prions) in the brain Making malarial mosquitos infertile (* ethical considerations) Synthesising biofuel AIDS cure Cancer detection mechanism to cause cellular death/induce apoptosis in abnormal cells Cure for sickle cell Cure for cataracts by growing autologous lenses Cure for blindness or eyesight degeneration Making VADs → (HKU hydrogel transistors, electrical interaction with living cells) Helping diabetics to endogenously produce effective insulin 🛡️ Prophylaxis Predicting/modelling viruses and vaccines (* ethics/dangers must be taken into consideration) 🏭 Biomaterial/Industrial applications Manufacturing leather without the need for mass animal slaughter Bioplastic on industrial scale (mitigation of microplastic crisis) Industrially producing natural inks Bioremediation: Landfills Radioactive sites Sewage systems 🎭 Fun ideas Tabulating or transcribing music on plants (patterns on leaves → gene expression) Bioluminescent lamps for: industrial applications architectural applications (can be used practically in hospitals, clubs as exit signs etc) design/decor! bioluminescent paint hair dye/cosmetics Printing the taste of a meal! for art/deisgn installation involving the coding of Hana programme/Hana AI to detect what is in an image and “print out” certain proteins? that correspond to flavours etc edible Print out QR codes on biomaterial to be scanned and play music for art/design installations or if not QR codes then fun characters or shapes (presets) that can be scanned by Hana programme/Hana AI which then play certain songs? stills from films even? covers of albums? Mushroom testing kit which prints out species name on flesh of mushroom or testing strip once pricked or sample collected (kind of like pregnancy test but not, more like DNA sequencing mushrooms to determine what species that are) Sustainable nail polish Generating music from colony of bacteria for art/design/science installation . . . In the end I decided that I would like to pursue further the idea of printing an image as well as the taste of a food/meal using edible media. I would like to call it “Tastemaker” or “Yum Dot Com.” This project highlights the sensory potential of biological engineering, whilst sitting at the intersection of biology, technology, design, the culinary, and the quotidian human experience.
🧬 3.1 Choose your protein I was thinking of choosing between two proteins Titin (also known as connectin) which is the largest known protein encoded by the TTN gene. In humans it accounts for 0.5kg of body weight! Titin is important in muscle cells, acting as a molecular spring. It is the third most abundant protein in muscles, giving them their elasticity, structural integrity, and stability. Green fluorescent protein or GFP which is found in the crystal jelly or hydromedusa (Aequorea Victoria), as well as various species of coral, sea anemones, and crustaceans. GFP is often used as a reporter gene in cell as well as molecular biology. Scientists have created many organisms which can express GFP which is thusly a proof of concept that a gene can be expressed by a given organism. This protein has been introduced and expressed by many species, maintained in their genome, and even passed on to their offspring; such organisms include bacteria, yeast, fungi, fish, and mammalian cells, including those of humans.