¶ Lessons & Presentations
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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
¶ Experiment Materials
¶ General
¶ Pre-labs
¶ Virtual Simulator
- Canvas Kit Experiment Simulator English , Français
- Simulator follow-up Quiz (English only. Contactez-nous si vous le voulez en français)
¶ Instruction Manuals
¶ Equipment you will need
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.
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Microwave (for heating water only, can be a food microwave since no organisms or chemical will go in)
¶ Available Kits
- Canvas Kit to create living paintings (Bacteria)
- Contact us for a custom kit: help@amino.bio
- New! Canvas Kit to create living paintings - Yeast
Visit the Canvas Kit (Yeast page) for specific resources
¶ Example Results
¶ Videos
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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
¶ About the bacteria in the Canvas Kit
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:
- Amino Labs experiment kits & safety
Discover which bacteria is used in the kits, where it comes from and what biosafety levels are. - Zero to Genetic Engineering Hero Book Chapter 3: Growing E.coli cells
Page of resources excerpted from the Zero to Genetic Engineering Hero book ch. 3
¶ See also
If you have our Zero to Genetic Engineering Hero book, this experiment aligns with Chapter 3.