TY - JOUR
T1 - Biobits™ explorer
T2 - A modular synthetic biology education kit
AU - Huang, Ally
AU - Nguyen, Peter Q.
AU - Stark, Jessica C.
AU - Takahashi, Melissa K.
AU - Donghia, Nina
AU - Ferrante, Tom
AU - Dy, Aaron J.
AU - Hsu, Karen J.
AU - Dubner, Rachel S.
AU - Pardee, Keith
AU - Jewett, Michael C.
AU - Collins, James J.
N1 - Funding Information:
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.),
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2018 The Authors
PY - 2018/8/1
Y1 - 2018/8/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
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U2 - 10.1126/sciadv.aat5105
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.aat5105
M3 - Article
C2 - 30083608
AN - SCOPUS:85051362271
VL - 4
JO - Science advances
JF - Science advances
SN - 2375-2548
IS - 8
M1 - eaat5105
ER -