DIYbio

Overview | Concept | DIYbio | Workshops | Exhibition | Evaluation | Conclusion

Planning

Prior to the wetlab workshops, we visited the hackspace on several occasions to prepare for the wetlab sessions. This included a short introduction to synthetic biology and our project, health and safety discussion, and primer design workshop. From our early interactions with the citizen scientists, we found that they have done many PCRs and gels before. Some of these have been successful. However, they have not attempted cloning before due to the lack of licensing and UK regulations. What they wanted from this collaboration is to visit our lab to see how we conduct the experiments in an academic institution and also to be able to perform all the steps in the cloning process. Hence, in the UCL workshop schedule we attempted to fit all the experiments in three days.

Hackspace Workshop schedule

UCL Workshops 3rd-5th September

In the beginning of September, we held three day workshops in UCL teaching laboratory for the citizen scientists. We had an ambitious plan for the workshops, from genomic DNA extraction to ligation and transformation. This was a packed schedule. However, after day one, we quickly realised that it would be a much better learning experience for the biohackers if the pace was slowed down. The amount of practical experience between these citizen scientists also varied. We allowed much longer time intervals between the practicals to answer the biohackers questions and to show the biohackers proper techniques we use in the laboratory.

Original UCL Wetlab Workshop schedule

Result: Analytical Digest of the Public Biobrick

Safety and regulations

Legality of making competent cell protocol at London Hackspace