Homework

Weekly homework submissions:

• Week 1 HW: Principles and Practices

  Symbiotic Interface Bioreactor: Engineering Human–Cellulose Microbial Hybridization Biological Engineering Application For more than six years, I have cultivated bacterial cellulose in my studio through sustained, direct contact with microbial communities. I handle these cultures with bare hands, without gloves, sharing the same air and environment over long periods of time. My artistic practice is therefore already a form of embodied cohabitation with microorganisms. This long-term collaboration motivates my proposed biological engineering project. Within the scope of HTGAA, I propose to develop a small-scale, proof-of-concept relational microbiome assay designed to explore whether direct human touch measurably alters the microbial composition of bacterial cellulose cultures. The project would compare parallel cultures grown under identical conditions, one handled with bare hands according to a standardized contact protocol, the other manipulated only with sterile tools. The goal is not to engineer permanent biological transformation, but to observe whether consistent ecological shifts can be detected between these conditions. In the context of a semester-long course without dedicated funding, the project would focus on feasible methods such as swab sampling, colony growth assays, CFU counts, pH monitoring, and basic community comparison techniques. If access to 16S rRNA sequencing is available within the course infrastructure, a limited comparative analysis could be conducted. If not, the study would remain at the level of culture-based profiling and observable material differences. This would still allow meaningful insight into ecological dynamics without requiring high-cost genomic analysis. More ambitious aspects, such as long-term stabilization of body-associated microbes within the cellulose consortium or advanced sequencing-based mapping of relational signatures, would be framed as future research directions beyond the HTGAA timeframe. In this sense, the course project would function as a pilot study testing the permeability of the system and establishing whether further investigation is warranted. The project therefore remains realistic within HTGAA, focusing on measurable ecological interaction under BSL-1 conditions, while acknowledging that deeper hybridization analysis would require extended funding, additional sequencing capacity, and longer-term monitoring.