Touchpaint - detecting touch by light. The iGEM symbol was drawn with a glass rod letter by letter on engineered human cells and imaged by a camera.
Cells were transfected with constructs coding for the bacterial ion channel MscS, gas vesicles (GvpA and GvpC) to enhance mechanosensing and a Ca-dependent
cyclic split luciferase reporter to visualize the signal by light.