About This Project

The access to educational resources for hands on biotech in the classroom, globally, is heavily constrained by the exotic and/or regulated reagents used in routine bioengineering protocols. The need for antibiotics in molecular cloning is a very large barrier to entry for educators, especially in the Global South. I have prototyped a positive selection system and wish to refine protocols for modern cloning using table sugar in safe laboratory E. coli and beyond.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

For the last 15 years I have been an amateur biologist and equipping my home lab with the tools and reagents necessary to conduct basic research has been an extreme challenge. Learning that this challenge also applies to educators in formal labs, where even undergraduate institutions in developing economies are unable to proceed with research due to lack of access has motivated me to find an alternative that uses universally accessible reagents. After some time digging the literature, I noticed that most workhorse lab E. coli strains lack the sucrose metabolism machinery, while this trait is readily available in wild pathogenic E. coli. By complementing this operon on a plasmid, one can leverage positive selection in minimal media.

What is the significance of this project?

Nothing is more effective at educating and inspiring the next generation of scientists as hands on laboratory activities. Biotechnology impacts every facet of modern life and students learning of this today need the tools to fully comprehend and engage with the methods researchers use to engage with the living world. Universal access to quality education is a moral mandate, and tools that enable and empower educators to add more hands-on experiences to their curricula should be a topic of active research. I want to see more people inspired by the living world, knowing they too have the competence and power to build with biology to tackle the grand challenges our species must overcome. There is no better place to inspire than in a classroom setting, and no better time to start than today.

What are the goals of the project?

The goal of this project is to establish a series of sugar-selected plasmids for the molecular cloning of genes into E. coli using modern techniques like Golden Braid without antibiotics, with the stretch goal of engineering other species to function under the same paradigm. Through gene knockouts and directed evolution, we can develop more robust strains better suited to this way of working. Regardless of the deliverable, we will develop educational materials to guide teachers with minimal resources on how to conduct laboratory investigations using our technology. All the materials and plasmids will be fully open source under MIT and Creative Commons licensure to encourage sharing and remixing of this tech.