Making Living Art with Bacteria in class
Introduction for educators & classroom-ready presentation Overview of the resources available to complete this experiment in class,classroom-ready slides to introduce the field of biology + art (bio-art) and slides to go guide the experiment.
What is Biotechnology?
Classroom-ready presentation General Biotechnology introduction with examples of new biotech applications and ethical issues.
Lesson Guide on bacteria
This Lesson Guide is best used alongside your Zero to Genetic Engineering Hero book chapter 3.
What is Agar
Infographic
What is Bioart/Agar art?
Blog post
This experiment can be done at room temperature or with an incubator. At room temperature the bacteria paint will grow more slowly and will be more pastel. See the photo in the Example Results section to compare room temperature vs incubator results.
Microwave (for heating water only, can be a food microwave since no organisms or chemical will go in)
Follow-along with your own Canvas Kit!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3_TBlVnvr0
Fun tips that will help you make better bacteria art on agar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6llwe_ZW60
We use lab-strain, non-pathogenic E.Coli bacteria in our kits. Many people hear of E. coli and think pathogen! In fact, most if not all humans have E. coli naturally occurring in our large intestines. E. coli is critical in helping to maintain gut health. About 100 years ago some E. coli was collected and was analyzed in a lab. This "strain" was shared by more and more labs. Through that process, scientists, slightly modified the bacteria to make them more "lab friendly". One hundred years later, tens of thousands of labs have used "lab strains" of E. coli for research, biomanufacturing, and more!
Lab strains of E. coli have modifications to them that make it virtually impossible for them to live in the environment, Amino Labs offers "K12 E. coli". Everything in Amino labs kits is biosafety level 1/ risk group 1.
The bacteria in the Canvas kit have been engineered in our lab to produce the bright colors of 'paint' so that you may create art. All the DNA code for the colors come from sea creatures. Specifically, the fluorescent colors - magenta, cyan - are a form of protein which are derived from dsRED (Discosoma species) and the chromoprotein - purple - are derived from Epiactis species.
Below are some links to explore the source organism further. If you want to learn how the colors are engineered into the bacteria, you can try out virtual simulator for the Engineer-it kit, which is the exact same processed we used in our lab to make the bacteria produce colors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiactis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_fluorescent_protein
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discosoma
More information:
If you have our Zero to Genetic Engineering Hero book, this experiment aligns with Chapter 3.