The Brown Lab's complete guide to microarraying for the molecular biologist.

I found this one http://cmgm.stanford.edu/pbrown/mguide/ while looking for articles on how to build your own DNA micro array. The software download link appears to be broken. However, I think you can get the software here http://en.bio-soft.net/chip/ArrayMaker.html

Synthetic Biology Workshop Keynote: J. Craig Venter on Synthetic Biology at NASA Ames

The synthetic biology initiative at NASA Ames is designed to harness biology in reliable, robust, engineered systems to support NASA’s exploration and science missions, to improve life on Earth, and to help shape NASA’s future. Read More : http://syntheticbiology.arc.nasa.gov/

What is Synthetic biology?

Where electonics design and diy biology meet

Electronic focus setup for a microscope : http://hackteria.org/?p=888#more-888

Visit to the design museum in London. Stumbled on E chromi

Recently I visited London and went to the design museum. There i stumbled on E chromi, one of the entrants of the 2009 International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM). In the design museum E. chromi was an entrant to the The Brit Insurance Designs Awards, "the Oscars of the design world," 

E. chromi from Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg on Vimeo.

j5: automated DNA assembly software

I have been playing around with this tool, quite fascinating. More on it here : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110816133115.htm


Excerpt  "The j5 software package is a Web-based computer application that automatically designs and optimizes state-of-the-art DNA construction protocols," Hillson says. "Within minutes it can determine the optimal flanking sequences that should be attached to each DNA part to produce the desired recombinant DNA at the least expense, in a manner that is executable by hand or robotics."

MIT Technology review : Genes Controlled with Light

Using a protein from the human retina, researchers in Switzerland have developed a method to control the expression of target genes with light. 


Read more : http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/37876/?p1=A1

Synthetic Biology Fact Sheet - Office of Naval Research

 

Interesting stuff and future applications here (http://www.onr.navy.mil/en/Media-Center/Fact-Sheets/Synthetic-Biology.aspx) :

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) Synthetic Biology Program aims to develop transformational approaches to multiple naval application areas. Products will include living organisms with the capability to produce, deliver, detect and respond to compounds, or to provide command and control to nonliving miniaturized devices.

Secure and sustainable production of high-value materials, such as energetic materials or future naval fuels, may be achieved using synthetic biology. For example, both bacteria and plants have been engineered to use sugars, carbon dioxide and sunlight to produce intermediates for the production of TNT and TATB (triaminotrinitrobenzene, an aromatic explosive).

Living sentinel species have also been generated, which may allow ‘plug and play’ approaches for design of systems that can sense and respond to threats. The illustration above shows leaves of plants that have been programmed to respond to the detection of TNT vapor by turning white. The color change can be detected using remote spectral imaging systems.

Part of ONR’s program is centered on developing more of the synthetic biology tools needed to advance the field, such as methodology to produce large, multigene sequences, stimuli-responsive regulatory sequences and methods for rapidly adapting cells to perform new functions.

As ONR learns more about how living organisms work and how their functions are controlled at a genetic level, it will expand the repertoire of functions and pathways available for designing new organisms. Ultimately, engineered cells may be used to control and make decisions for a non-living nano or micro device through the cells’ processing of environmental information and translation into signals interpretable by that device.

USA Today : DIY 'biopunks' want science in hands of people

What if you could genetically engineer a yogurt bacteria in your basement that turned blue in the presence of toxic heavy metals such as chromium and cadmium that are known to make people sick? .... Read more here : http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2011-06-01-science-biopunk-hacker_n.htm

Dutch Igem teams : Wageningen

Here is the Dutch Igem team of Wageningen University :

Student project Tudelft : iGem Team 2010 in finale met zelfbouwbacterie

click : 

Art exhibition ‘synth-ethic‘

Synth-ethic presents art work related to Synthetic Biology :http://bio-fiction.com/en/?page_id=20

Open science: a future shaped by shared experience

Mapping the human genome showed how the internet can play a vital part in collective scientific research. Now more scientists are collaborating – and inviting amateurs and colleagues from other disciplines to get involved.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/may/22/open-science-shared-research-internet

Cathal Garvey demonstrating Do-it-Yourself DNA extraction in a tent

Wow, Cool stuff!



Cathal Garvey demonstrating Do-it-Yourself DNA extraction in a tent from smarimc on Vimeo.

Biopunks, biohackers, and the movement to own your own DNA

On DNA Day, 23 and Me had a sale on their personal genomics service. They'd do their standard scan of your genome for free, as long as you paid for a year's worth of their online subscription service.

Read more here : http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2011/05/biopunks_biohackers_and_the_mo.php

UC Berkeley Starts Synthetic Biology Institute

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The University of California, Berkeley, has launched a new institute focused on synthetic biology and bioengineering, and it has signed up Agilent Technologies as its first industry partner, the university said yesterday.


Read more : http://www.genomeweb.com/uc-berkeley-starts-synthetic-biology-institute

Genomikon kit - BioBytes 2.0

I would really want to get my hands on the Genomikon kit to build my own plasmids. It is an educational self-contained kit. Read more here :http://2010.igem.org/Team:Alberta/biobyte2

"Synthetic Life?" The New Industrial Revolution? (Bioethics Seminar)

From Youtube : Will biological engineering usher in a new industrial revolution? Gregory Kaebnick, a research scholar at The Hastings Center, leads a bioethics seminar on synthetic biology. What is it? Where might it lead? What ethical questions does it raise?

Synthetic biology will bring us a slimy, moist future

The first post i put up on this blog was a quote from Freeman Dyson in 'Many colored glass' and descibed for me where we are heading with biology.  This wired UK article is an excellent article quoting the same source :


.....But those might be the aesthetics we'll have to get used to if Freeman Dyson was right when he wrote this a couple of years ago: "I predict that the domestication of biotechnology will dominate our lives during the next 50 years at least as much as the domestication of computers has dominated our lives during the previous 50 years."....


Read more : http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2009/09/start/synthetic-biology-will-bring-us-a-slimy-moist-future

Synthetic Biology Open Language

I guess these kinds of develeopments are the equivalent of a programming language and standardisation with respect to biological parts :

Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL) is a community effort involving University of Washington, BIOFAB, and VirginiaTech (Jean Peccoud). The purpose of the project is to develop computational representations for synthetic biology parts so that they can be efficiently exchanged between research labs. SBOL presently consist of semantics for describing parts and visual styles for visually displaying parts.