Week 1 HW: Final Project Ideas

Greetings…!

So I kind of just stumbled on HTBAA from a post on LinkedIn. I hope to really give this a full-faith effort, but there is so much to learn and so little time. I will at first try not to rely on AI-assisted responses so that my initial thoughts and ideas are unaided. Essentially, this is a learning experience, and I want to be able to look back on this project as a time when AI was starting to ramp up. I will answer the initial questions now, sans AI, and later expand on the responses as needed. Let’s go…!

Pulled straight from the hw…

(Q1) What you would like to biomanufacture and why? Describe the target product or output you would like to make. Why are you interested in making it? Your motivation might be utilitarian—for example, addressing a problem in health, sustainability, food, energy, or manufacturing—but it does not need to be. Your project might instead have a social, cultural, artistic, or personal motivation. Clearly articulate what you want to make, who or what it is for, and why you think it is interesting or important.

I have three ideas that I would like to learn more about and expand upon. Whether these ideas are acceptable or not is actually quite hard for me to decipher at this point in time. However, here goes the three topics…:

(1) I would like to learn about cellular expression related to melanin. A goal would be to see if the biosynthetic pathway could be altered to give melanin-like analogues, leading to differences in hair/skin pigmentation. Simply looking at the molecular structure of ‘melanin’, one can see the extended regions of of conjugation present in the molecule which impart its light-absorbing characteristics. I wonder if there are other amino acids that can be used instead of Tyosine that can be incoorporated to form similar, yet strucuturally diverse molecules? Ultimately, I want to know if we can grow hair follicles that can later be implanted in a persons head that will grow hair of a different color (pink, green, etc).

(2) Someone close to me suffers from Keratoconus, a condition where the curveture of the cornea in the eye causes vision problems. Current treatment for this condition includes injesting large amounts of vitamin B-12 along with taking long walks during the day. This leads to strenghting of the cornea via cross-linking due to the exposure of UV light with the yellow pigment in the cornea. I wonder if there is some kind of biofilm, or other material, that can be grown which can be used to either implant or crosslink with the cornea to help alleviate this problem. Current surgical solutions include the implantation of a plastic ring to help change the curviture of the eye or corneal transplants from donors.

(3) The oral form of Wegovy is one of the hottest treatments in the line of GLP-based thereputics but is only absorbed up to 1% in the stomach which is made possible by the use of an accompanying excipient “SNAC”. I am curious to know if syn bio can be used to either test other excipients, or to manufacture similar surfactants. Is there an endospore or other packaging mechanism that can provide better absorption?

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(2) What living system would you use? Propose at least one living-system manufacturing chassis that could produce your target—for example, a microbial, mammalian, or cell-free system. At a high level, describe how the system would make your target product. What goes into the system? What biological process or processes occur? What comes out? You do not need to design the complete biological system yet. Make reasonable assumptions where necessary and identify them.

I have quite a bit more learning to do to completely answer this question. Melanin is ubiquitously known, so my guess is that a human cell line would likely be the model of choice, however, I am woefully ignorant as to how powerful E. Coli. or CHO cells are when it comes to transformations and transfections. Maybe P. Aregenosa with its biofilm can be altered to give a clear and functionaly similar gel/biofilm? Also, possibly looking to pancreatic cells for surfactant synthesis might be a consideration…? I am sorry, but I am just not at a level where I can be confident in this response at this time…

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(3) How would you use automation? Identify at least one automation technology that you would combine with your living system. This could include a large-scale Cloud Lab, a desktop liquid-handling robot such as an Opentrons, a programmable microfluidics platform such as Nuclera’s, or another automation technology. Describe what part of the biomanufacturing workflow you would automate and why. For example, you might automate liquid handling, culturing, assembly, screening, sampling, measurement, optimization, or another step.

For the melanin project, I can see automation being useful for screening, since different hues may be easier to detect using aided robotics. Culturing and measurment for the keratoconus project would likely be necessary if a biofilm was being crafted to a certain specification for a patient’s eyeball. As for excipients, I think optimization of conditions for maximum yield of excipient formation could be enhanced via automation. Maybe even a cell-free enviornement would be most useful since SNAC-like compounds can likely be formed enzymatically.

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(4) How much would you need to make, and how long would it take? Perform a back-of-the-envelope calculation estimating what it would take to manufacture your target at a meaningful scale.

(a) How much? Define a scale relevant to your project and calculate approximately how much of your target product you would need to manufacture. For example, if you are producing a medicine, you might estimate the amount required to treat 1,000 people, everyone in Massachusetts, or everyone in the world. If you are producing a building material, you might calculate the amount required for one structure or an entire neighborhood. If you are producing an art or design artifact, define an appropriate scale yourself. Clearly show your calculation, including units, assumptions, and sources for important numbers.

Okay…guess I WILL resort to using Gemini for these calculations/questions:

(1) Prompt : How many people in the united states currently dye their hair? Can you give a rough back-of-the envelope count, based upon the total population?

Response: Roughly 111.6 million adults in the United States currently dye their hair.

Here is the back-of-the-envelope breakdown using 2026 U.S. Census Bureau demographic projections and industry averages:

-Total U.S. Population: Approximately 349 million people. -Adult Population: Subtracting the 21.1% of the population under age 18 leaves an adult demographic of roughly 275.3 million. -Gender Split: Applying the U.S. demographic ratio (50.9% female, 49.1% male) to the adult population yields approximately 140.1 million women and 135.2 million men. -Female Usage: Industry data indicates that approximately 70% of adult women use hair color products. Calculating 70% of 140.1 million equals roughly 98.1 million women. -Male Usage: Market surveys show roughly 10% of adult men color their hair. Calculating 10% of 135.2 million equals roughly 13.5 million men.

Adding the female and male estimates together produces a total of 111.6 million American adults. While this calculation excludes minors who also dye their hair, it captures the vast majority of the consumer market driving hair dye sales.

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Prompt: How many fair follicles are on the head of an average human female?

Response: The average human female—and male, as follicle counts do not differ significantly by sex—has approximately 100,000 hair follicles on her scalp.

(2) Prompt: How fast does P. Aregenosa take to grow to a colony with radius of 3cm?

Response: … Standard Colony Growth (Hard Agar, ~1.5%): On standard petri dishes, P. aeruginosa grows as a macrocolony with a radial expansion rate of approximately 0.95 to 1.0 mm per hour. At this steady rate of cellular division and localized swimming, it will take roughly 30 to 32 hours to reach a 3 cm radius…

(3) Prompt: How many people currently take the oral form of Wegovy in the United States?

Response: …Based on prescription tracking data from September 2026, roughly 650,000 to 750,000 people in the United States are currently actively taking the oral form of Wegovy…

(b) How long? Using your proposed living system and automation technology, estimate how long it would take to manufacture that amount. Consider quantities such as production rate, yield, volume, number of parallel experiments or reactors, automation throughput, or whatever parameters are most appropriate for your system. You may discover that the automation technology you would use to prototype your system is very different from what you would use to manufacture at scale. If so, describe both. Again, we are looking for a reasonable engineering estimate. Show your assumptions and calculations.

(1) Prompt: How long would it take to grow 100,000 hair follicles in a laboratory setting?

Response: …Currently, it takes approximately 130 to 150 days to grow fully mature, functional hair follicles in vitro from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs).

…The true barrier to generating 100,000 follicles simultaneously is not biological time, but bioprocessing scale. Transitioning from standard BSL-2 benchtop well-plates to mass 3D organoid generation requires precise control over nutrient diffusion and waste removal to prevent necrotic cores from forming in the center of the cellular aggregates. If a lab can engineer adequate microfluidic vascularization or 3D scaffolding to support that volume of tissue, a full head of hair can theoretically be grown in under five months.

(2) Prompt: How many people in the united states suffer from Keratoconus?

Response:…recent studies indicate the prevalence may actually be… 1 in 400 or even 1 in 345. If these higher estimates are accurate, approximately 850,000 to 1 million people in the U.S. may have the condition.

(3) Prompt: How much of the excipient SNAC was consumed last month, assuming 750,000 Americans are currently taking the oral form of Wegovy?

Response: Approximately 6,975 kilograms (nearly 7 metric tons) of the excipient SNAC (salcaprozate sodium) were consumed last month by this population.

SNAC per tablet: Every oral semaglutide tablet—whether the 25 mg Wegovy pill or any dose of Rybelsus—is formulated with exactly 300 mg of SNAC. This high volume is strictly required to locally buffer stomach acid (raising the pH around the tablet to ~5) so the semaglutide peptide can survive gastric digestion.

Total tablets: A once-daily dosing regimen for 750,000 patients over the 31 days of last month (August 2026) results in 23.25 million tablets consumed.

Total mass: Multiplying 23.25 million tablets by 300 mg of SNAC yields 6,975,000,000 milligrams, which converts to 6,975 kilograms.