Tuesday, October 04, 2016

Weekly Meetups with Biotinkering e.V. at Art Laboratory Berlin


Bio & Beers | every Thursday with Biotinkering e.V.
A project of Dr. Mirela Alister, Rüdiger Trojok and Biotinkering e.V.



The Bio & Beers format is for everyone: we start with a 20 minutes presentation, followed by discussions while having beers. In additon there will be occasional DIY workshops!


October 6 · 7:00 PM  DIY Biology/Spectrometry – Rock ur Rainbow
with Alessandro Voltape
The main interest of DIY (Do It Yourself) biologists is to give everyone the possibility to answer biological questions affecting more or less their lives. The first step towards that, is to enable citizens to execute experiments in self-organized laboratory. The need for more advanced tools led to the development of cheap, but functional lab tools.
In this talk I will present the project that was taken on at the Science Hack Day Berlin by the wonderful DIY Spectrometer team!

This device was created by Public Lab (publiclab.org) during the deep water horizon oil spill to detect mineral oil in water.

But this device can be used for other purposes, for example to understand the worries of the Consumer and Health Scientific Committees about light sources at home.

"With the growing use of energy saving lamps and the development of new lighting technologies, comes the worry that some people who have conditions that react to light might be negatively affected by this shift. Can these new artificial light sources affect the health of the general public or of light-sensitive people?"
Source: EU Comission - Consumer and Health Scientific Committees
http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_layman/artificial-light/en/index.htm#1 with this cheap and portable spectrometer and your smartphone you can check all the lights in your environment (home/work/school/etc.) and have a better understanding about the worries of the scientific committes.

Moreover Dr. Kat F. Austen will be our guest and will tell and discuss with us the results of her work. She is applying spectrometry for food analysis  

October 13 · 7:30 PM: Bio & Beers - Digital Microfluidics Hacking

This week's topic: DropBot - Digital microfluidics for everyone

Presenter: Ryan and Christian Fobel

Currently researcher in Wheeler's lab, Toronto, Canada, Ryan and Christian have built DropBot, a digital microfluidic biochip.

Here is more about their vision: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdYNTL64lfwAfter their short presentation, we will join them for an intense hacking session.

October 15 · 12:00 PM: Growing Cellulose - Workshop
Microbial cellulose is a material with unique aesthetic properties: delicate and sensuous, it resembles skin and bodily matter. Not only: once dried, it has paper-like attitude. The best thing is that you can cultivate it yourself!

Margherita Pevere will teach us how to get directly involved in the adventurous life of microbial colonies and show us her unique way to grow cellulose.

We will learn how to grow Glucoacetobacter Xylinus with DIY recipes, compare different kinds of cultures, how to protect them from mold, how to dry cellulose and use it creatively.

-----------workshop schedule-----------
12:00 - 12:30 Microbial cellulose fundamentals: what it is, how it grows, different kind of cultures
12:30 - 13:00 Preparing the media: DIY recipe based on soy derivatives; Tricks to to protect cultures from mold
13:00 - 13:40 Creative prototyping
13:45 - 14:00 DIY Bio code of conduct
14:00 - 15:00 Lunch and discussions

Presenter: Margherita Pevere, artist and researcher at Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland. www.margheritapevere.com  

October 27 · 7:00 PM: Bio & Beers - Messenger DNA


November 3 · 7:00 PM: Bio & Kombucha tea - introducing Movember

November 10 · 7:00 PM: DIY CRISPR-CAS
If you are interested in what and how you can use gene technology at home, tonight is the perfect occasion to learn about it. Ruediger Trojok will introduce the latest techniques for genetic modification (CRISPR-CAS) and will discuss the legal aspects of DIY genetic engineering.

November 17 · 7:00 PM: Do it together Art and Science
Can Art and Science work together?

Joanna and Mert will bring in their experience to discuss the potentials of a program that brings together artists and scientists for a long term collaboration.

Presenters: Joanna Szlauderbach (http://szlauderbach.eu/about-me/) and Mert Akbal (http://mertakbal.com/)

November 24 · 7:00 PM:  Workshop: Brewing kombucha

December 1-3 · 7:00 PM: Biohack academy: DIY Gene TechnologyA workshop on DIY Synthetic Biology led by Rüdiger Trojok
During this 3-day workshop we will clone GFP and transform E. Coli.
December 8 · 7:00 PM: Bio & Beers end of the year brainstorm

Saturday, October 01, 2016

Video documentation of the seminar Living Systems | Aquatic Systems online




Complete video documentation of the seminar Living Systems | Aquatic Systems featuring talks by Regine Rapp, Robertina Šebjanič and Kat Austen, with moderation by Christian de Lutz can be found at http://artlaboratory-berlin.org/html/eng-event-31.htm