Homework
Weekly homework submissions:
Week 1 HW: Principles and Practices
Engineered Biosensors For the Detection of Illegal Mining Pollutants Week One’s Principles and Practice class taught us the foundations of ethics, safety, and governance using biotechnology. While pondering ideas for the bioengineered tool or application, I was inspired by the battle against the ongoing menace of small-scale illegal mining in Ghana propularly known as “Galamsey”.
Week 2 HW: DNA - READ, WRITE & EDIT
Homework Part 0: Basics of Gel Electrophoresis I have watched all the lecture slides and reciatation videos. Part 1: Benchling & In-silico Gel Art I created a benchling account and imported the Lambda DNA
Python Script for Opentrons Artwork This has been the most interesting and somewhat challenging assignment so far. I chose make an artistic design based on the adrinkra symbols. The adinkra symbols are a set of visual symbols from Ghana, created by the Akan people to represent philosophical concepts, historical events, and social proverbs.
Week 4 HW: Protein Design - Part I
Part A. Conceptual Questions Question 1. How many molecules of amino acids do you take with a piece of 500 grams of meat? (on average an amino acid is ~100 Daltons) Answer A dalton is a unit of mass used to express the mass of atoms, molecules, and other subatomic particles.
Week 5 HW: Protein Design - Part II
Part A: SOD1 Binder Peptide Design A peptide binder is a short, engineered protein fragment usually <50 amino acids that binds to specific targets. It functions as a powerful, cost-effective, and stable alternative to larger antibiotics or small-molecule drugs. A peptide binder is used to modulate, degrade, or inhibit disease-related proteins, especially those that are deemed undruggable due to the absence of clear binding pockets.
Week 6 HW: Genetic Circuit - Part I
Assignment: DNA Assembly Question 1. What are some components in the Phusion High-Fidelity PCR Master Mix and what is their purpose? Answer A PCR master mix is a pre-formulated, ready-to-use solution containing all the components required for PCR, except the DNA template and primers. It usually includes Taq DNA polymerase, deoxynucleotide triphosphates (dNTPs), magnesium ions, and an optimized reaction buffer at precise concentrations to ensure efficient and reproducible DNA amplification.
Week 7 HW: Genetic Circuits Part-II
Assignment Part 1: Intracellular Artificial Neural Networks (IANNs) Question 1. What advantages do IANNs have over traditional genetic circuits, whose input/output behaviors are Boolean functions? Answer An IANN is a nonlinear computer model designed to mimic the structure and function of biological neurons in the brain. It usually has multiple inputs and outputs, where neurons process weighted inputs to generate output signals.
General Homework Questions Question 1. Explain the main advantages of cell-free protein synthesis over traditional in vivo methods, specifically in terms of flexibility and control over experimental variables. Name at least two cases where cell-free expression is more beneficial than cell production. Answer Cell-free protein synthesis is a biotechnology technique for producing proteins in a test tube using biological machinery extracted from a cell.
Week 10 HW: Advanced Imaging and Measurement Technology
Homework: Final Project For your final project: Please identify at least one (ideally many) aspect(s) of your project that you will measure. It could be the mass or sequence of a protein, the presence, absence, or quantity of a biomarker, etc. Answer One of the aspects I will measure is the expression levels and enzymatic activity of the four colorimetric reporters in response to known concentrations of their respective target metals in a cell-free system. The colorimetric reporters are LacZ (Blue, for lead detection), Crtl (Orange, for arsenic detection), BpsA(Purple, for mercury detection) ad MelA(Brown, for cadmium detection)
Week 11 HW: Bioproduction and Cloud Labs
Part A: The 1,536 Pixel Artwork Canvas | Collective Artwork I contributed to the HTGAA global artwork canvas, which drew inspiriration from the reddit r/Place experiment. I helped in filling the yellow space pixels in the blue box at the lower left corner of the artwork, and also helped in some of the other designs. In all, I contributed 10 pixels to the global artwork canvas and was ranked 66th among the top contributors. I enjoyed working with everyone to create beautiful designs from the chaos of pixels 😹.