new project GRFT website

 project GRFT presents a sparkling new website

https://projectgrft.org/

We hope you enjoy your time there 

This week: CRISPR-Cas9 superstar Jennifer Doudna, Ph. D.

This Thursday 2-23 from 7-8 PM  Jennifer Doudna, Ph. D. will speak in Room 431 of Berkeley City College.  This event free and open to the public.
More information here:

http://www.berkeleycitycollege.edu/wp/sci-biotech/science-seminar-series/

http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/02/15/berkeley-statement-regarding-patent-boards-decision-on-crispr-cas9-gene-editing-technology/

Through the looking glass - 2017 update

Here’s some of what I saw this year at BiOS and represents only a small fraction of what was there.  I’ll put up a few more links soon.  It is fascinating to see all these amazing developments in biophotonics, biomedical optics, and imaging being made at such a rapid pace.  Thanks to all who graciously let me point my little camera at them.  Please visit their linked websites to learn more about what is outlined here.

In the order that they appear in the video we present:

Dipl. - Phys. Uwe Ortmann of  PicoQuant returned this year from Berlin with the latest Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging (FLIM) development to capture motion in cells at 10 frames per second (FPS). 

http://www.picoquant.com/

Aileen Chen of Vista Optronics Inc. came to San Francisco from China and demonstrated a tiny endoscope (1.5mm outside diameter) - not much larger than an acupuncture needle. 

www.VistaOptronics.com

Justin Harris Ph.D. of  NanoHybrids Advanced Imaging Solutions came from Austin, Texas and explained how gold and light are used for non-invasive cancer diagnosis and treatment.

www.NanoHybrids.net

Markus Geiser Dr. sc. ETH of  IRsweep came from Zurich Switzerland and demonstrated a new spectrometer with  bandwidth of up to 150 cm^-1 in the mid-IR range of 5 µm (2000 cm^-1) to 10 µm (1000cm^-1).

www.irsweep.com

Ben Alexander of Caliber Imaging and Diagnostics from Lakeway, Texas demonstrated a new technology for quickly scanning and stitching together confocal microscope images of biological samples up to 80 x 120 mm.

www.caliberid.com

Congratulations Dr. Yoshinoi Ohsumi

Excerpt from protocol/labnotes

Excerpt from the protocol:

Nenufar – antiviral research project 01 – Expression and purification of peptide LBOUNCER from the synthetic  gene VRBNCR-01 inserted into an e-coli plasmid vector, transformed and induced to grow on bacteria.  Explore how to do this in a fast and consistent way with the highest purity.

Experiment 01A:

DNA synthesis of the VRBNCR-01 gene which is inserted into a pET15 expression plasmid with a His 6 tag on the N-Terminus followed by a thrombin cleavage site.  The gene will be cloned into pET15b via NdeI and BamHI. We will use heat transform into competent cells, then plate out on Amp-agar to grow colonies.  Induce for expression.

Then on to Experiment 01B: purification using chromatography and SDS page

I contacted a lab in the San Francisco Bay Area where we can work.  All in all, we are going to do a lot of improvising so we can stretch the budget and work for at least 6 months on the experiment. Everyone is volunteering their time. We have wonderful mentors and we are learning by doing, the biohacker way.  It is always a steep learning curve as anyone who has worked in molecular biology knows.  The journey of discovery makes it worthwhile.  Thanks to all of you who are making this possible.

NIH announces meeting about the first-in-human use of gene editing via CRISPR/Cas9 technology

The recombinant DNA Advisory committee is holding a meeting on June 21-22 2016 on CRISPR/Cas 9 use in humans with a T cell immunotherapy protocol that involves the use of CRISPR/Cas9 to edit two genes in T cells also modified to express T cell receptors targeting myeloma, melanoma, and sarcoma tumor cells.  The meeting is open to the public or can be attended remotely by the webcast link here on the days of the meeting.  More info here  

We have less than 30 days to go to raise our goal for our proposed experiment, please support our project with a donation and/or pass the word.

http://experiment.com/anti-viral

programming language for living cells

MIT biological engineers have created a programming language that allows them to rapidly design complex, DNA-encoded circuits that give new functions to living cells.

Using this language, anyone can write a program for the function they want, such as detecting and responding to certain environmental conditions. They can then generate a DNA sequence that will achieve it.

more...

healing with light part 02

This is basic information on optogenetics with animation:

2008 lecture by one of the pioneers in the field, Professor Karl Deisseroth:

Professor Deisseroth goes a little deeper into it in 2015 with recent research:

and a paper:

Targeting Neural Circuits

Through the Looking Glass

What can we learn about the latest photonic and optical tools for biological applications?

From the 2016 SPIE Photonics West BIOS expo, we asked a few of the many exhibitors to shed light on some of these tools and the science behind them.  

I would like to thank the following participants in this 2/13/16 video.  My apologies for the low quality, I shot it with a point and shoot still camera.  More information can be found by following the links to their websites.

1. Mary Harper Ph.D. talks about advanced microscopy products.  

http://www.etaluma.com/

2.  Xiaoshi Zhang, Ph.D  shows us the eXtreme Ultraviolet Ultrafast Source (XUUS4) from KMLABS.  More about the science and technology making nanoscale imaging down to the atomic level may be found here:

http://www.kmlabs.com/content/high-harmonic-generation

3. Ben Barbieri, Ph.D. , President of ISS gives us a clear and concise explanation of FRET (Förster resonance energy transfer) 

There is a class in April 2016 to learn more about this and related subjects:

https://www.fluorescence-foundation.org/courses.aspx?id=champaign2016

and be sure to check out the ISS website

http://www.iss.com/

4. Dipl. -Phys. Uwe Ortmann from the Berlin based PicoQuant talks to us about confocal microscopy which enables us to image single molecules and proteins. The website includes links to workshops and courses: http://www.picoquant.com/

 5. Bob Kressin, President of KS Technologies shows how his company designed a spectroscopy (determine the chemical composition of a substance and match it to a database of materials) device using DLP (think video projector) technology.  https://kstechnologies.com/

6. Scott Rudder, Vice President of Marketing and Sales at IPS Innovative Photonic Solutions talks to us about Ramen spectroscopy which enables us to examine molecular structure (you could for example identify the active pharmaceutical ingredients and polymorphic forms of a drug) I'm sorry Scott but my camera ran out of card so you were not able to finish telling us about the Integrated Ramen Probe but there is more about it here:

http://ipslasers.com/integrated-Raman-probe.html 

The video is about 13 minutes, we hope you enjoy seeing the latest advances in biophotonic and optics technology.

For other videos on photonics see:

http://spie.org/app/spietv/default.aspx

seeing a virus through 3D modelling

BLOG INAUGURATION

BLOG INAUGURATION

This blog could also be titled "adventures in biology" because it is going to chronicle our journeys into the life of cells and molecules.  The San Francisco Bay Area is a brilliant point of light in the global science network (You knew that, didn't you?). I'd like to thank the citizen scientists of the Bay Area biohacker community for your kind help and support.  I'm not mentioning any names in this post but you know who you are.  Nenufar loves you!
Nenufar is preparing to conduct our first experiment to produce a peptide,  Hey, why don't we give it a name?

NML-0001

Our interest in lectins with antiviral properties led to research that indicates that this peptide may have medical applications.  We will say more about this in future posts.

We will welcome any interested parties interested in science to join with us on this adventure,  please leave your comments and questions as the experiment progresses.