BioBits™ Bright: A fluorescent synthetic biology education kit

Synthetic biology offers opportunities for experiential educational activities at the intersection of the life sciences, engineering, and design. However, implementation of hands-on biology activities in classrooms is challenging because of the need for specialized equipment and expertise to grow li...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Science advances Vol. 4; no. 8; p. eaat5107
Main Authors:	Stark, Jessica C, Huang, Ally, Nguyen, Peter Q, Dubner, Rachel S, Hsu, Karen J, Ferrante, Thomas C, Anderson, Mary, Kanapskyte, Ada, Mucha, Quinn, Packett, Jessica S, Patel, Palak, Patel, Richa, Qaq, Deema, Zondor, Tyler, Burke, Julie, Martinez, Thomas, Miller-Berry, Ashlee, Puppala, Aparna, Reichert, Kara, Schmid, Miriam, Brand, Lance, Hill, Lander R, Chellaswamy, Jemima F, Faheem, Nuhie, Fetherling, Suzanne, Gong, Elissa, Gonzalzles, Eddie Marie, Granito, Teresa, Koritsaris, Jenna, Nguyen, Binh, Ottman, Sujud, Palffy, Christina, Patel, Angela, Skweres, Sheila, Slaton, Adriane, Woods, TaRhonda, Donghia, Nina, Pardee, Keith, Collins, James J, Jewett, Michael C
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	United States AAAS 01-08-2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science
Subjects:	BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES SciAdv r-articles Scientific Community Synthetic Biology
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Synthetic biology offers opportunities for experiential educational activities at the intersection of the life sciences, engineering, and design. However, implementation of hands-on biology activities in classrooms is challenging because of the need for specialized equipment and expertise to grow living cells. We present BioBits™ Bright, a shelf-stable, just-add-water synthetic biology education kit with easy visual outputs enabled by expression of fluorescent proteins in freeze-dried, cell-free reactions. We introduce activities and supporting curricula for teaching the central dogma, tunable protein expression, and design-build-test cycles and report data generated by K-12 teachers and students. We also develop inexpensive incubators and imagers, resulting in a comprehensive kit costing <US$100 per 30-person classroom. The user-friendly resources of this kit promise to enhance biology education both inside and outside the classroom.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER) SC0018249 These authors contributed equally to this work. Present address: Ombudsman Chicago South CPS Options School, 6057 South Western Avenue, Chicago, IL 60636–2019, USA.
ISSN:	2375-2548 2375-2548
DOI:	10.1126/sciadv.aat5107