Bio Zero

Learning about the building blocks of life

As a primer for both biology and synthetic biology, we learned about the basic building blocks of everything that lives. From proteins, DNA, cell structures, metabolism to the inner working of a single-cell organism, we dove into the most important abstraction layers of biology. Sometime curious, sometimes overwhelming, it was always incredibly eye-opening and revealing. Through that, we gained a perspective that later in the course enabled us to explore synthetic biology, CRISP-CAS9 and PCR tests.

But first we simply played around with a microscope lens for our smartphones, discovering the world around us. Below you can find some of the images that came to be of this.

Microscopic images

Sampling Bacteria

Methodology

Probe 1 – For probe one, to be put in an all purpose medium, a clinical glove was sterilized and and dried for est. 3 minutes. After, the glove was used to wipe my forehead with the index finger for aprox. 1 second. Then, the contaminated finger was wiped across the medium, which was then closed.
‍Probe 2 – For probe 2, to be put in a Lacto Basilius medium, a sterilized wooden spatula was used to take a sample from Paula's yoghurt. After, this sample was moved across the medium to transfer the cultures.

Hypothesis

Probe 1 – As for probe 1, this serves as a control group for Borka's test of wiping both a public bike's handlebar and my bike's handlebar. If the hypothesis is correct, she should cultivate a bacteria in one of her samples which is closely related to the sample gathered on my skin.
Probe 2 – As for probe 2, the hypothesis is that we can verify lacto bacilius bacteria in a sample of yoghurt.For probe one, to be put in an all purpose medium, a clinical glove was sterilized and and dried for est. 3 minutes. After, the glove was used to wipe my forehead with the index finger for aprox. 1 second. Then, the contaminated finger was wiped across the medium, which was then closed.

Mixing bacteria mediums in group work.

The classroom during the PCR test.

Gene-Editing Organisms

Additionally, we were assigned to propose a genetic modification for an organism based on the IGEM parts library. Subsequently, I'm proposing to reduce the smell of bananas because I think they have more winning qualities to them, such as their taste. The part employed would be BBa_J45220 , utilizing this sequence.

Dr. Nuria Conde preparing samples for the PCR test.

Analyzing the PCR test results.