Abstract
Synthetic biology offers opportunities for experiential educational activities at the intersection of the life sciences, engineering, and design. However, implementation of hands-on biology activities in classrooms is challenging because of the need for specialized equipment and expertise to grow living cells. We present BioBits™ Bright, a shelf-stable, just-add-water synthetic biology education kit with easy visual outputs enabled by expression of fluorescent proteins in freeze-dried, cell-free reactions. We introduce activities and supporting curricula for teaching the central dogma, tunable protein expression, and design-build-test cycles and report data generated by K-12 teachers and students. We also develop inexpensive incubators and imagers, resulting in a comprehensive kit costing <US$100 per 30-person classroom. The user-friendly resources of this kit promise to enhance biology education both inside and outside the classroom.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | eaat5107 |
| Journal | Science Advances |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 1 2018 |
Funding
We acknowledge M. Barbier, R. Campbell, P. Daugherty, M. Davidson, J. Leonard, and R. Tsien for the gift of plasmids encoding fluorescent protein genes. We also acknowledge A. d’Aquino and M. Takahashi for help in editing the manuscript, J. Dietch for help with the Python Environment for Tree Exploration (ETE) toolkit, L. Durbin for help with portable laboratory equipment assembly and the laboratory-free experiments, and M. Beltran, Christopher Jewett, Colin Jewett, and E. Jewett for help in the design and execution of the in vitro Connect Four® game. This work was supported by the Army Research Office grant W911NF-16-1-0372 (to M.C.J.), NSF grants MCB-1413563 and MCB-1716766 (to M.C.J.), the Air Force Research Laboratory Center of Excellence grant FA8650-15-2-5518 (to M.C.J.), the Defense Threat Reduction Agency grant HDTRA1-15-10052/P00001 (to M.C.J.), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (to M.C.J.), the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Program (to M.C.J.), and the U.S. Department of Energy BER (Biological and Environmental Research) grant DE-SC0018249 (to M.C.J.). We also acknowledge support from the Wyss Institute (to J.J.C.), the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group (to J.J.C.), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (to J.J.C.), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (RGPIN-2016-06352 to K.P.). J.C.S. was supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. A.H. was supported by the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group. P.Q.N. was supported by a Wyss Technology Development Fellowship. R.S.D. was funded, in part, by the Northwestern University Chemistry of Life Processes Summer Scholars program. The U.S. government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation thereon. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, or the U.S. government.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General