Of all the world’s cities, Cambridge undoubtedly stands out as a bright hub of science, education, and creativity. Local biotechnology startups, interdisciplinary research centers, and world-renowned universities contribute to a lively neighborhood that prides itself on innovation and curiosity. Often times, however, as a community member the opportunity to engage with such exciting activity can feel limited to those who possess university affiliations and professional credentials. In turn, the institutions that aim to contribute to the advancement of science for society can seem exclusive - sequestered to the “ivory tower.” In an effort to counter this institutional exclusivity EMW Bookstore created the community program, Street Bio. Street Bio’s mission is to explore the interface of engineered biology and “the street” - the people, culture, and products that will shape how biology leaves the lab and enters our everyday lives. Believing that biology is humanity’s next technological revolution, we ask, who will be empowered to participate?

Among our many projects, which include building out an in-house community laboratory and managing the international course “How to Grow (Almost) Anything,” we collaborated with the Cambridge Science Festival (the first-of-its-kind celebration highlighting fun and leading edge science, technology, engineering, art, and/or math - STEAM - in our region). Importantly, as educational curriculums move from STEM to STEAM, educators and students alike are realizing the false dichotomy between science and art and how the two disciplines synergize immensely well in many respects. In April 2016, EMW collaborated with Amino Labs on a 2-day workshop for youth as a part of the Cambridge Science Festival. Over the course of a weekend, more than 20 youth, from late elementary school to middle school, participated in a hands-on workshop where they learned about synthetic biology and applied their knowledge to culture bacteria in the Amino One, a table-top bacterial culture system. The students cultured E. coli and transformed bacteria with recombinant DNA.

Through our successful collaboration with the Cambridge Science Festival, Street Bio aspired to make a commitment to local youth engagement in an effort to foster a fun learning environment conducive to boundless scientific curiosity and unlimited imaginative exploration. As luck would have it, Crystal Johnson, a parent of one of the participants at our Street Bio/Cambridge Science Festival program connected with Street Bio founder, David Kong. Johnson, founder of Integrative Sustainability and Environmental Solutions and accomplished energy strategist, shared our excitement regarding continued youth engagement in the sciences. After several teleconferences, we planned a recurring weekend youth program focused on engaging local youth at the forefront of science, and thus, EMW Bookstore’s Street Bio Youth Science Initiative (YSI) was born.

In an effort to advance Street Bio’s mission, the YSI has been geared towards engaging underrepresented and disadvantaged youth in science - girls, youth of color, low socioeconomic status. Upon forming partnerships with local biotechnology startup Ginkgo Bioworks, research groups at MIT Media Lab, and an astronaut at NASA, we ultimately developed a theme centered on sustainability and a timeline for recurring weekend workshops where each YSI session would take place at a different laboratory and we would spend the day learning, asking questions, building, experimenting, and bonding over our shared love for science.

After several weeks of publicizing the YSI, the first session took place on October 15th, 2016. Our pioneering cohort of youth participants arrived the morning of at Ginkgo Bioworks, a bioengineering startup nestled on the drydock in Boston’s Seaport District. After a brief introduction to YSI and its core organizers, the majority of the day centered on the idea of “Making Molecules.” The initial interactive lessons described microorganisms in nature make their own molecules and for what purposes. Presenters drew on examples such as haloarchaea and yeast. A design activity, where participants were given the opportunity to design their own microbes, yielded incredibly innovative ideas ranging from microbial pollution eliminators, water purity indicators, mini-machine repairers, microbes that would enable ovenless baking, and more! Following a pizza lunch, the cohort was given a personalized tour of the Ginkgo Bioworks foundry where the youth were given an overview of how the lab uses robots and tools like bioreactors, fermentation hoods, and mass spectrometers are used to build microbes that make molecules.

Alongside the planning of YSI, the community laboratory buildout, and HTGAA activities, a team of Street Bio biohackers were building a microbiome record player capable of sonifying cultures from our own personal microbes on petri dishes modified to resemble vinyl records - microbiome records! Eventually, following the foundry tour the cohort had a second set of interactive lessons on the human microbiome and the intersections between the microbiology and engineering. They were subsequently introduced to Street Bio’s microbiome record player. After a brief overview of how the machine worked, the youth were introduced to the scientific method and they quickly got started on culturing their own individual microbiome records. The youth were given a demonstration and opportunity to produce electronic music using a prototype of the microbiome record player, and in a few days after sending them pictures of their cultured microorganisms, we would send the participants their personalized microbiome records’ audio files.