Human Practises: Evolving
Evolving - Stockholm Makerspace
To be a part of a bigger movement amongst the Biohacker community
Our initial interaction with Biohackers was during the first Bio-Makers conference in Sweden; an event hosted by and for bio-makers, bio-hackers and DIY-biologists with the aim to share inspirational stories and practical hacks and protocols from the international biohacker movement. These were the themes of the conference: Lab, health, cyborg and community, which coincided with our project, providing a great occasion with an enthusiastic crowd for presenting our work. We seized this opportunity and enrolled the team to participate, by submitting an abstract of our project plan for the iGEM Competition. We were granted a space for our poster workshop presentation in their conference, to convey our ideas and discuss the critical health issue we proposed to tackle.
BILD FRÅN BIONYFIKEN KONFERENSEN
----- What is a Makerspace? ”A Makerspace (also called hackspace / fab lab) is a location where people with common interests, often in computers, technology, science, digital or electronic art (but also in many other realms) can meet, socialise and/or collaborate.” -----
Several participants were interested in our innovation. Amongst them was the founder of BioNyfiken and board member of Stockholm Makerspace, who was eager to contribute to our project. BioNyfiken is a biohackers network hosting workshops and meetups involving speaking events and training in biohacking, synthetic biology, quantified self and related topics. Their goal is to spread the knowledge of what is possible to do with biotechnology as technology becomes more accessible to the public, and encourage people without any training in substance use technology to examine themselves and their environment and drive the biotechnological development. With over 500 members and a newly licensed DIY BSI openlab space approved by Arbetsmiljöverket (equivalent to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration), we have organized interactive workshops consisting of theoretical presentations followed by laboratory practicals in bacteria sampling, plating, identification, as well as basic techniques such as pipetting and microscopy. This allows for the society to get a hands-on experience in synthetic biology and at the same time be involved in our work.
Open House at Stockholm Makerspace
On 20th of August, the biolab at Stockholm Makerspace had an open house co-hosted by iGEM Stockholm 2016. Everyone was invited and around 50 people of all ages with a wide variety of backgrounds other than synthetic biology participated. Attendees had the opportunity not only to learn more about synthetic biology and how a basic laboratory is structured and operates but also to try out basic but essential skills using a range of equipment and experimental procedures. Following a presentation detailing Stockholm Makerspace, iGEM Stockholm 2016 and the overall collaboration, everyone was curious and mingled through different stations we set up around the lab, including: DNA extraction from kiwis and cherries, introduction to pipetting, gel electrophoresis and PCR.
At this event we were fortunate to be able to announce the three upcoming workshops hosted by iGEM Stockholm at the Makerspace lab: “Lab Basics”, “Cultivation” and “Glowing E. coli”.
BILD FRÅN OPEN HOUSE
The Workshops
The purpose with the workshops held at Makerspace was to teach the participants how to use and work with basic lab equipment in order to pursue simple but important experiments in synthetic biology. By attending all three workshops, with many more to come, this would be possible even for the least experienced person!
For the three workshops we had a total of XX people in all ages with many different backgrounds attending.
Statistics blabla figures
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Lab Basics
In this workshop, held the 2nd of October 2016, the participants had the opportunity to learn how to use a pipette and different microscopies. The workshop opened up with a presentation by Sina from Makerspace and Oscar He from the iGEM Stockholm team where they talked about what Makerspace and iGEM is, what the outcome of the workshop would be and answered some questions. In total, 14 people attended with 8 people before noon and 6 in the afternoon.
BILD INTRODUCTION PRESENTATION
The workshop was divided into two stations; pipetting and microscopy. The pipetting workshop had two different tables, one where the participants were given several dilutions with given volumes written on the board. Following the dilution instructions and using different working stock solution of food colouring and water made by the instructors, the participants had to make the dilutions and lastly make a final dilution but with unknown volumes. This way, the participants had to think for themselves how to dilute and create the correct concentrations! To confirm they had reached the right concentration, the absorbance was measured and compared to a pre-made sample by the instructors. This generated a lot of fun and a bit of a competitive spirit!
FIGURE DILUTION BOARD
During this time, half of the group had another assignment at another table. Here the participants had to mix coca-cola and milk using pipettes to take certain volumes. To make sure the samples were mixed, they had to use a vortex and in order to separate the precipitation from the solution, they used a table-top centrifuge. Then they used the pipette to take out the water, just as if they wanted to save a cell pellet.
FIGURE centrifuge/pipetting/whatever
As a conclusion, the workshop was very appreciated by the participants where 14/14 would recommend it to someone else, 14/14 felt that they learned something new (which was our main goal) and from a scale from 1-10 in terms of how fun the activities were during the workshop, the mean value was 9 - a great grade for the instructors!
Cultivation
The second workshop was held the 9th of October. This time the participants learned the basics of cultivating bacteria in terms of medium, growth, collection and plating, and working in a sterile environment.
FIGURE PRESENTATION
Firstly, they prepared medium by mixing broth and water and prepared it in a microwave oven. This was what we were going to grow bacteria on. Secondly, they poured the medium into two petri-dishes each. While the medium was solidifying, bacterial samples were collected by taping on different surfaces. They touched the solid medium (agar) with the tape to stick bacteria to the plate. Some people gently pressed their thumb against the agar before and after washing their hands. On the other agar plate they practiced streaking of bacterial culture (of bacteria from the mud outside the building). The plates were then incubated in room temperature and the results analyzed before the third workshop. The participants got to find out if there is any difference in bacteria on the thumbs before and after the hand wash!
FIGURE CULTIVATION
It is fun to see the participants slowly but steadily mastering basic lab techniques to be able to perform more advanced experiments.
STATISTICS FROM SURVEY
The instructors were Sina and Erik from Makerspace and Maren and Nicole from the iGEM Stockholm team.
