https:/.../media.mp4

Hello, and thank you for joining me today.

My name is Dianna Long

and I'm in the complex Biosystems program.

And my advisor is Rajib Saha in

chemical and biomolecular engineering.

Today. I'm excited to share with you a creative

outreach project called The Green Machine.

As I share this project with you

I'm gonna first give you some background and context

of what our lab does and why we see outreach

as being a critical component of our research.

Then I'll briefly show you the design of the green machine.

And lastly, I will walk you through an activity.

So let's start with some background.

In Dr. Saha's SSbio lab that I'm part of

we have many different projects going on

but today I'm gonna focus

on the work related to bioproduction

By bioproduction, I mean using existing biological systems

to turn feed stocks like plant materials,

into industrially, useful chemicals.

In our lab, the biological systems we use are bacteria.

While all of the organisms we use already have

metabolic capabilities to be interesting for bioproduction

to make them better producers and more industrially useful.

They all need some tweaking.

This modification process can be referred

to as strain design.

So how does strain design work?

The first step

in strain design is just picking the starting point

choosing which bacterium to start

with really depends on the problem being addressed

and the bacterium's capabilities.

The next step is actually many

many sub steps that help guide a strategy

for how to improve the bacterium.

This step heavily relies on the central dogma of biology

which states that phenotypes stem from genotypes.

In other words, DNA codes for RNA

which codes for amino acid sequences

which then fold into proteins and drive reactions

which shape the phenotype of the organism.

This is important to remember because it explains why

when we want to change a certain behavior of a bacterium

we go back to the DNA.

This leads to the final step of strain design

which is making the improvements.

And in a nutshell, that's what we do.

However, I left out what I believe is one

of the most crucial aspects

of our research to become successful.

And that is outreach.

Outreach is so, so important

for our research because due to its applied nature

we really can't succeed unless it's supported, understood

and adopted within effected communities.

We are just one little part

in this pipeline going from crops to final products.

And we need support from farmers, from industrial plants

from lawmakers and from future generations.

For the rest of this presentation, I get to

show you how we are trying to reach future generations.

So with that, now we'll move

into the specifics of the green machine.

So I based the green machine off

of the "Monster DNA Sequencer" that I found on imgur

and this project was super cool

and also potentially super flexible

as a platform for many different activities.

The green machine is made

of only a few components that allow it to read

and decode sticks of Lego blocks

which are representative of DNA strands.

The green machine has an Arduino UNO board connected

to an easy driver, which runs a stepper motor.

And this is what pulls the DNA strands into the machine.

The UNO board is also connected to an RGB color sensor

and that is what is used to read the DNA strands.

This system, as I said, provides a very flexible platform

for which various activities can be designed.

So let's look at an activity.

This activity I've called non-model discovery

and this is an activity created

for kids kindergarten and up.

The goal is to discover and characterize a bacterium

that has some bioproduction capability.

The procedure is to build a DNA segment

which is 10 bricks long, run it through the green machine

which in this activity is acting as a sequencer.

And then to color in the worksheet based on the output.

The main concepts that are hit on are first

just that bacteria exists then that DNA building

blocks are what is determining the bacteria phenotypes.

And finally that bacteria can make things

which introduces bioproduction.

This next slide has a video

of me demoing this activity with my fiance's son, Jack.

Today. We're gonna do an activity together

and we're gonna learn

about these things called bacteria and I'm Dianna.

And can you introduce yourself to the camera?

No.

What's your name?

No, not saying it.

Can you say how old you are?

Five

Five and this is Jack.

So bacteria

are these teeny

teeny tiny little things

that live all around us.

So there's bacteria on your skin.

There's bacteria on this table right now.

It's just so teeny tiny.

You can't even see it.

Some bacteria, scientists are really interested

in because they can eat things

like leftover food or leftover crops

and they actually can make some really cool chemicals.

So today what we're actually gonna do with these

you can set your little structure over by Darth Vader

and we're going to use the rest

of these and we're gonna make some bacteria.

And then we're gonna use the green machine here

and we're gonna run it through it.

And it's gonna tell us some cool stuff

about our bacteria.

How's it gonna tell us all by itself?

We're gonna see.

So the things that's gonna tell us

are what our bacteria eats.

What it can make?

What color its gonna be, if it has hair or not

and what its favorite weather is.

So can you count out 10 Lego pieces for me?

4,5,6

So what we're doing is making the code to make our bacteria

Eight, nine, ten.

You got yours ready? Mmhm.

Okay. And it just goes like this

and then we're gonna hit go.

And we're gonna hear some noises, ready?

See what happens.

So see, it's gonna answer some questions for us.

So what does it make? Plastic

Its going in there.

It is going.

Last question and then its gonna spit it out.

And so this piece of DNA

tells us

that we have a bacteria that makes plastic, it eats grapes.

It loves snow,

it's orange.

And it isn't hairy.

We all drew our bacteria

So what does yours make, Jack?

What does yours make?

Plastic.

Plastic

he makes plastic

and he likes snow

and he eat grapes.

That's right.

and he's orange

Yeah, he's orange.

Yeah, yeah. Orange, orange, orange.

Yay bacteria friends.

So since the video was a bit far away

here's another look at Jack's bacteria.

So this activity is an example

of what we can do with the green machine to give hands-on

and interactive introductions into strain design.

So this brings me to the end of my talk

and I want to quickly wrap

up by reiterating that educating members

of our community and getting them excited

about our research could be vital in how well some

of this applied science is accepted and actually applied.

And with that, I would like to thank my lab,

my advisor, Dr. Rajib Saha,

specifically also our postdoc Cheryl for all

of their support and help and input on this project.

Thank you.