Working with scientists, biologists and bioengineers poses a difficult but rewarding challenge when you are a designer or design student exploring biodesign. In addition to the task of diplomatically reaching out to these people, there is the ongoing effort of communicating effectively and managing the collaboration. Additionally, working with new biotechnology can be extremely difficult.
In this PDF , you can find tips and tricks to get started. Written by Tony Cho as addition to the Biodesign Book.
“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”
Charles Darwin
This Bio Research page is a platform, a collection of knowledge linked to Bio Art and Bio Design in the broadest sense. The aim of this website is to educate, inspire and wonder you about our exquisite nature and all its inhabitants. And also to start practicing DIY (do-it-yourself) biology.Throughout the years we build a large network of artists, designers, scientists, physicists in our practice, being an artist and designer. We learned, shared, failed and continued. The content on this page is something which is in our minds for years, finally published to share with a broader public.
At this moment in our society the design of materials has never been so questioned and researched about sustainability and plasticity of the matter in itself. Through the challenges of finding materials that can fit in the human necessities, technologies are created to understand and develop these materials in a nano-scale structure, to be printed and reused, which are definitely an evolution and improvement of human techné in sustainability and the creation of cultural objects that represents our contemporary society.
We discuss the anthropocene, capitalocene and many other titles that represent the human force upon nature (as if we are not part of it) to build our objects, architectures and artefacts, however this action also leads to the destruction of the natural environment. The design cycle that we have planned is not a closed cycle. The world is polluted. Combined with this we also fear the scarcity of the resources that we are used to design. Makers, professionals of different disciplines and experimentalists push the design vector to think about alternatives that can replace the materials that will be out of ‘stock’ and create new ones to be more sustainable and effective.
The way we design still very much ‘human centered’, which means an approach to interactive systems development that aims to make systems usable and useful by focusing on the users (or consumers), their needs and requirements, and by applying human factors, ergonomics, usability knowledge, and techniques. But how does this affect the other species in the world? We use them in such a way that they are able to develop or grow according to our desires, but what is the effect on the long run for our ecosystems? What if the focus of these alternatives were in the core of the design in itself? How can we change the process of material development and our ways of production? What if we design together with the living?
Today’s guest post is brought to you by Amida who writes at the wonderful blog, Journey Into Unschooling. Here she shows you a great way to re-use plastic soda bottles or juice cartons to create an upside-down tomato planter!
I’ve always been fascinated with growing tomatoes upside-down, but, $19.99 (which was what my local garden supply store was selling it for) seemed a bit steep to pay for what essentially is a bag you fill with dirt! So I decided to make our own using some very basic materials we had around the house.
Here’s what you’ll need:
* 2-liter bottle or juice carton
* Garbage bag
* Duct tape
* Tomato plant
* Utility knife
* Paper towel
* Cotton balls
* Twine
Step 1.
Using the knife, carefully cut off the bottom of your bottle or carton.
Step 2.
Roll up a garbage bag around your arm and insert into the bottle. Once inside, loosen the bag
and try to spread it evenly within the bottle. The reason I used the black bag was to keep the roots covered and hopefully warm in the sun.
Step 3.
Fold the top edge of the bag over the bottle and secure with duct tape.
Step 4.
Wrap a tomato plant with paper towel and carefully insert into the bottle and out through the spout. The towel will help keep the soil together.
Step 5.
Fill the rest of the bottle with soil.
Step 6.
Wrap some twine or string at the mouth of
the bottle, stretching along the length of
the body, and tape in place.
Step 7.
Stuff some cotton balls through the bottom opening to help keep water in.
Step 8.
Hang in a sunny spot and water thoroughly. Our plants have been growing strong for at least
three weeks now and appear to be doing well. Within the first week, the plant flipped around and started
growing upwards.
Another advantage I’ve noticed is that there that are no bugs on the plants! Perhaps in thisway, they will survive a little longer than our usual crop and maybe even provide us with some juicy tomatoes this summer.
The ‘Makers Guild’ is a maker space at Waag that connects craftsmanship, digital personal fabrication and biotechnology. The Makers Guild re-introduced manual, labour intensive craftsmanship as a supplement to the digital fabrication practices of the Fablab. It researches traditional crafts and combines them with digital fabrication.
If you are a designer hoping for a career in biofabrication this is for you!
Over the next few weeks we’re hosting conversations with creatives working full-time in-house at biotech startups in the US and in Europe. Our goal? To provide you with insights into a career in biodesign and biofabrication.
Sign up to our newsletter for updates and use the box below to submit a burning question. We’ll present the most frequently asked ones to our guests.
DNA. It’s what encodes the genetic material of every living thing. And it also makes a yummy cocktail.
This video, which stars TED Fellow synthetic biologist Oliver Medvedik, shows you how to make a delicious adult beverage out of frozen strawberries, pineapple juice and Bacardi 151. Follow the adorably animated instructions, and you’ll be able to isolate the DNA of strawberries while making a shot. Throughout it all, Medvedik — who co-founded New York City’s community biolab GenSpace (see photos of their incredible office building) — shares the science of why he chose strawberries for this recipe and reveals exactly what each step does toward isolating DNA.
Some of you may be wondering: can you make a non-alcoholic version? Yes, says Medevik, but it would require using a substance like chloroform or phenol. Medevik explains, “It would have to be an organic solvent where the DNA is poorly soluble. Alcohols, such as isopropyl or ethanol, are good since they are fairly nontoxic, cheap and have the right chemical attributes.” Look, but don’t drink.
This video was shot by cinematographer Peter Olsen, directed and edited by TED’s own Kari Mullholland, sound designed by Arjun G Sheth and animated by Joy Buran, James Buran and Noelle Melody of Twins Are Weird. It was shot at GenSpace, where everyday citizens can learn about biotechnology.
Enjoy the video. And cheers! To tinkering with the stuff of life.
TED Fellow Andrew Pelling is a biohacker, and nature is his hardware. His favorite materials are the simplest ones (and oftentimes he finds them in the garbage). Building on the cellulose structure that gives an apple its shape, he “grows” lifelike human ears, pioneering a process that might someday be used to repair body parts safely and cheaply. And he has some even wilder ideas to share … “What I’m really curious about is if one day it will be possible to repair, rebuild and augment our own bodies with stuff we make in the kitchen,” he says.
Why you should listen
Scientist, professor, entrepreneur and TED Fellow Andrew Pelling has built a career on unapologetic curiosity, creativity and serendipity. He is a professor and Canada Research Chair at the University of Ottawa where he founded and directs a curiosity-driven research lab that brings together artists, scientists, social scientists and engineers. The lab uses low-cost, open source materials and methods to explore speculative living technologies of the future. He has created human body parts from plants and grown living skins on LEGOs — innovations with the potential to replace prohibitively expensive commercial biomaterials.
Pelling is cofounder and CSO of Spiderwort, a company developing innovative plant-derived biomaterials and medical devices for reconstructive surgery and regenerative medicine. He also founded pHacktory, a street-level research lab in Ottawa that amplifies community ideas through a potent mixture of craft, serendipity and curiosity.
Pelling’s work has been in the international media spotlight for many years and recognized in outlets such as Wired, Huffington Post, NPR, Scientific American, Popular Science, BBC, Der Spiegel, Deutsche Welle and others, as well as numerous highlights in the Canadian media and Scientific media. He was named a TED Fellow in 2016.
Ellen Jorgensen is at the leading edge of the do-it-yourself biotechnology movement, bringing scientific exploration and understanding to the public. Should we bring back the wooly mammoth? Or edit a human embryo? Or wipe out an entire species that we consider harmful? The genome-editing technology CRISPR has made extraordinary questions like these legitimate — but how does it work? Scientist and community lab advocate Ellen Jorgensen is on a mission to explain the myths and realities of CRISPR, hype-free, to the non-scientists among us.
Why you should listen
In 2009, after many years of working as a molecular biologist in the biotech industry, together with TED Fellow Oliver Medvedik, Jorgensen founded Genspace, a nonprofit community laboratory dedicated to promoting citizen science and access to biotechnology. Despite criticism that bioresearch should be left to the experts, the Brooklyn-based lab continues to thrive, providing educational outreach, cultural events and a platform for science innovation at the grassroots level. At the lab, amateur and professional scientists conduct award-winning research on projects as diverse as identifying microbes that live in Earth’s atmosphere and (Jorgensen’s own pet project) DNA-barcoding plants, to distinguish between species that look alike but may not be closely related evolutionarily. Fast Company magazine named Genspace one of the world’s “Top 10 innovative companies in education.”
What others say
“Ellen Jorgensen is helping to democratize biology—making it less the purview of academics and Big Pharma and more an enterprise accessible to anyone who wants a hands-on scientific experience.” — Discover Magazine, October 2011
Ellen Jorgensen is at the leading edge of the do-it-yourself biotechnology movement, bringing scientific exploration and understanding to the public. We have personal computing — why not personal biotech? That’s the question biologist Ellen Jorgensen and her colleagues asked themselves before opening Genspace, a nonprofit DIY bio lab in Brooklyn devoted to citizen science, where amateurs can go and tinker with biotechnology. Far from being a sinister Frankenstein’s lab (as some imagined it), Genspace offers a long list of fun, creative and practical uses for DIY bio.
Why you should listen
In 2009, after many years of working as a molecular biologist in the biotech industry, together with TED Fellow Oliver Medvedik, Jorgensen founded Genspace, a nonprofit community laboratory dedicated to promoting citizen science and access to biotechnology. Despite criticism that bioresearch should be left to the experts, the Brooklyn-based lab continues to thrive, providing educational outreach, cultural events and a platform for science innovation at the grassroots level. At the lab, amateur and professional scientists conduct award-winning research on projects as diverse as identifying microbes that live in Earth’s atmosphere and (Jorgensen’s own pet project) DNA-barcoding plants, to distinguish between species that look alike but may not be closely related evolutionarily. Fast Company magazine named Genspace one of the world’s “Top 10 innovative companies in education.”
What others say
“Ellen Jorgensen is helping to democratize biology—making it less the purview of academics and Big Pharma and more an enterprise accessible to anyone who wants a hands-on scientific experience.” — Discover Magazine, October 2011
