Akshaya Maria Thomas

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24th May, 2011

Day 1- The Beginning

The majority of the team being Art students came to class only with the memory that high school biology provided us. As the class progressed - researching on DNA, E-coli and other experiments, I came to realize that I remembered very little of what I had been taught; though, the class discussions made it seem like hardly anything; most of what I remembered was either misunderstood or too vague. Researching more into Synthetic Biology, I finally came to the conclusion that basically a gene sequence is like a design, mixing different sequences to produce different designs.

We discussed the various elements essential to know for synthetic biology- cells, DNA, genes and proteins and genetic engineering. Durga stumbled upon a video from khan academy.com about DNA, which made things much easier to understand.

We also discussed how we as artists and designers can contribute to science.


25th May, 2011

Day 2

Our assignment for the day was to come up with different functional living organisms or bacteria. Madhul, Manasa, Achala and I worked together as a group, and came up with 5 different kinds of living organisms-

1) A bacteria that can change eye colour in the form of eye drops.

2) A bacteria that can change facial expression in the form of gas.

3) A bacteria that can control the genetics of a living organisms off spring.

4) A bacteria that can regenerate cloth.

5) A bacteria that can clean and heal wounds instantly.


We extracted our DNA, and who knew that it was a simple 3 step process:

1) Gargle salt water hard against your cheek

2) Spit it out into a test tube

3) Add pril dish wash to the salt water.

4) Add alcohol- running against the edge of the test tube.

Immediately,I found strings of DNA rising to the top of the liquid. It was wicked!!

Later, Yashas asked us to bury it anywhere around campus- apparently it's a ritual scientists do. Weird? No sh*t! But anyway, I took mine into the secret garden, poured it one a bunch of twigs and burnt it.


AMTdna.jpg





26th May, 2011

Day 3

DIY!!!

Aaron took class for us today. He told us to research on the different equipment used in a laboratory. He then gave us a list of different equipment used in a MICRO-BIOLOGY lab; making it easy to compare the two and understand the difference.


Equipment used in a Micro-Biology lab:

1) Microscope

2) Gel Electrophorsis

3) Water Bath

4) Centrifuge

5) Incubator

6) Autoclave

7) Anaerobic Jar

8) Dessicator

9) Forceps

10) Laminar Air Flow

Biswajith (Bissu), Damyanti, Prakrithy and I formed a group and decided to design the Dessicator and the Laminar Air Force.


Who would've though a simple webcam lying at home, would become a microscope! All we had to do is flip the lens of the web cam and TA-DAA!! We had to design a stand to support the microscope coz it wasn't stable on it's own,it didn't have sufficient light nor space to put slides. After brainstorming different designs, Bissu came up with a Lego structured design, which was sturdy and added LED lights to see the sample clearly.


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