DIYBio PCR Challenge
The PCR Challenge on the 19th of April brought together a lot of eager amateurs interested in the tools and techniques behind CSI-style DNA analysis; looking to see how is it done and whether we could do it too. There are two parts to this process – PCR, a lab technique whereby you select a particular piece of DNA you’re interested in and produce lots of it (amplification), followed by another technique Gel Electrophoresis, the end result of which is a supercool CSI-style gel graph. (more…)
DIY Bio MCR: The Future…
PCR Challenge
In the last year, over 350 people have dissected octopuses, made fuel cells with soil from Northern Quarter car parks, attended the UK’s first DIY Bio summit, gotten to grips with PCR machines and pipetting or roamed the streets of Manchester swabbing bus-stops for bacteria. They’ve seen malarial jewellery at the Microbiology and Art exhibition, quaffed beer and kimchi at the microbial picnic and bred Malaysian Trumpet snails (RIP).
All this was made possible by funding from the Wellcome Trust and the help of MMU. Shortly after the unveiling of the Manchester Microbe Map at Future Everything in May, the project will come to a close.
BUT! We are going to continue as DIY Bio Mcr and we need your feedback in order to raise further funding and make the changes you want to see.
Please can you take five minutes to fill in this survey. Even if you’ve not been to DIY Bio Mcr yet, we’re keen to hear your thoughts.
BEACON update
Last November DIYBIOMCR received a Manchester Beacon Recognition Award to further develop its community-University partnership.
(more…)
OpenPCR @ MadLab
DIYBIOMCR February was a team building workshop, putting together an OpenPCR. We had about 20 attendees from various backgrounds (even one from Birmingham!) interested in DIYBio. Here is Dan Hett’s summary of what happened.
Last week’s DIYBio was a special event, to get stuck into building a couple of PCR machines. In addition to our home-made one, we also got our hands on what we think is the first OpenPCR machine in the UK.
Getting a bit ahead of myself though. What is PCR?
PCR is a relatively simple and inexpensive tool that you can use to focus in on a segment of DNA and copy it billions of times over. So, even with a small DNA sample, such as from spitting in a tube, or tearing off a piece of a leaf of lettuce, PCR allows to you make a bunch of copies of the DNA so you have enough to analyze. PCR is used every day to diagnose diseases, identify bacteria and viruses, match criminals to crime scenes, and in many other ways.
Inside the Octopus at DIYBIO
Last September, Dr. Brian Degger lead an octopus dissection workshop fro DIYBIO. Participants got into the incredibly flexible cephalopods and found out some amazing things. Check out the video, curtesy of Maria Ruban to see what we did.
(more…)
DNA origami and Octopus announcements
Wednesday night was the August DIYBio meeting, delayed from our usual ‘third Wednesday of the month’ slot but with a relatively good attendance considering that a lot of people are probably on their summer holidays!
We celebrated the survival of the snails (who now seem to be reproducing busily) but decided that we would wait until the new generation were a bit bigger, and Team Snail were present, before starting our selection experiment.
(more…)
Microbe Picnic aftermath
On Sunday the 21st, The DIYBio gang had a Teawitter event in the form of the Microbe Picnic. Microbes have played a large part in the food industry for years. Industrially, microbes have been used in the fermentation of bread and alcohol and even Vikings used it to produce mead. Kimchi, the cornerstone of Korean eating, contains a number of lactic acid bacteria, among those the typical species Lactobacillus kimchii.
Malaysian Trumpet Snail
The Malaysian Trumpet, scientific name Melanoides tuberculata, is a species of freshwater snail, a parthenogenetic, aquatic gastropod mollusk in the family Thiaridae. They are native to subtropical and tropical northern Africa and southern Asia.
This species has an elongate, conical shell, which is usually light brown, marked with rust-colored spots. They also have an operculum, essentailly a door to their shell. They feed mainly on algae. (more…)
How do snails get it on?
Although our snails are water snails, thought it would be interesting to see how snails bred in general. Here’s Isabella Rossellini’s guide to snail sex.
Microbes, molluscs and machine
20th July, and it was time for another DIYBio meeting. I was looking forward to the meeting immensely because I had heard that quite a lot of progress had been made by some of the teams, and I was really interested in finding out what they had been up to.
Unfortunately not all the news was good. Although a sterling effort was made by Team Snail, the first batch of snails that we brought into Madlab did not fare very well and had sadly expired during the month. A second set had already been introduced to the tank, and we discussed how we might help them survive a bit better this time around. David had done a lot of excellent research, and discovered that our snails are Malaysian Trumpet Snails. They like to burrow, so we gave them some sand for the bottom of the tank. They also thrive best at relatively high temperatures (compared to Madlab) so we discussed obtaining a water heater to maintain the tank at around 25 degrees. We had a very interesting presentation on the snails, including the fascinating fact that while the females can reproduce without mating, the offspring are not identical clones but have variation because the mother snails combine two of their gametes (eggs), each of which contain a random selection of their gene ‘alleles’ – in effect having sex with themselves!
