Abstract
Hands-on demonstrations greatly enhance the teaching of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts and foster engagement and exploration in the sciences. While numerous chemistry and physics classroom demonstrations exist, few biology demonstrations are practical and accessible due to the challenges and concerns of growing living cells in classrooms. We introduce BioBits™ Explorer, a synthetic biology educational kit based on shelf-stable, freeze-dried, cell-free (FD-CF) reactions, which are activated by simply adding water. The FD-CF reactions engage the senses of sight, smell, and touch with outputs that produce fluorescence, fragrances, and hydrogels, respectively. We introduce components that can teach tunable protein expression, enzymatic reactions, biomaterial formation, and biosensors using RNA switches, some of which represent original FD-CF outputs that expand the toolbox of cell-free synthetic biology. The BioBits™ Explorer kit enables hands-on demonstrations of cutting-edge science that are inexpensive and easy to use, circumventing many current barriers for implementing exploratory biology experiments in classrooms.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | eaat5105 |
| Journal | Science Advances |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 1 2018 |
Funding
This work was supported by the Wyss Institute (to J.J.C.), the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group (to J.J.C.), and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (to J.J.C.). The authors also acknowledge the Army Research Office 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.),
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General