Ever wanted to create your own organism? It鈥檚 now easier than ever. Just take a dash of E. coli, a pinch of jellyfish DNA, stir well and heat gently. As it bubbles away in a vial mounted on top of the stylish wooden box, the mixture slowly turns red. When done, this bioluminescent paint made by your customised bacteria will glow like a firefly.
At an event for synthetic biology start-ups in San Francisco on 4 February, showed off the Amino One, a tabletop bioreactor aimed at the consumer market.
The kit shrinks several lab components on to a device the size of a briefcase. Beginners will be able to modify and grow bacterial cells to create paint, medicinal compounds, scents and even foodstuffs such as yogurt, beer and bread.
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The Amino One comes with a couple of basic recipes that walk users through the steps needed to create their first custom bacteria. To make red bioluminescent paint, for example, you simply insert the kit鈥檚 K-12 strain of E. coli and jellyfish DNA into the bioreactor. The Amino One then raises the temperature inside the chamber, prompting the bacterial cells to open their membranes and allow the DNA in.
Feed me, now!
Supplied with food from another chamber, the bacteria multiply in a tube that runs along the top of the device. Users can keep an eye on things like temperature and pH via the device鈥檚 screen or a web app. When finished, the device will clean itself and reset for the next creation.
Another starter recipe teaches users how to tweak E. coli鈥�s metabolic pathways to produce violacein, an anti-parasitic compound used in cancer research. Amino Labs plans to release other starter recipes soon.
Amino Lab鈥檚 CEO Julie Legault says she initially had the idea for a pocket-sized Tamagotchi-like device that would allow people to keep and care for bacteria. But the Amino One promises to be more useful than that.
Bioengineering for beginners
Schools are already using simple science experiments to teach children the basics of bioengineering. However, Amino Labs wants people聽to improvise, hacking together different scents and materials. Why not throw coffee in with their red paint recipe and see what happens?
鈥淭he imagination part of this kit is so much more valuable than the actual mechanics of growing and engineering cells,鈥� says Christina Agapakis, a biologist and artist who is the creative director at .聽鈥淚f this kit can inspire a kid to imagine themselves as a scientist and to be creative about what they might one day do with DNA, then that鈥檚 much more important than actually learning to use a pipette or what temperature bacteria need to grow or anything like that.鈥�
Amino Labs will ship the first batch of Amino Ones in March, initially to people who backed its Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. Early adopters will pay $799, but the price is expected to fall to a few hundred dollars once the company begins mass-producing the devices in 2017.
Fit for consumption?
For now, Amino Labs advises against consuming anything that comes out of its machine. Baking and brewing will require a future upgrade that adds a yeast-processing capability and a component that tests whether your concoctions are safe to eat.
Legault says she hopes the Amino One will present a positive side of synthetic biology to the public, which has been bombarded in recent years with messages about genetically modified organisms.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really misunderstood by the public,鈥� Legault said. 鈥淚f you get the hands-on initial experience, you actually feel more comfortable taking part in the conversation about ethics.鈥�
