Tom gave a talk at UCL (Paul O Gorman building 30/Nov/2015) Tom gave a talk on Biohackspace automation @ synthace, 10th September 2015 Tom gave a talk on Biohackspace robotics @ Cambridge Makerspace 5th September 2015 Ilya, Lena and Victoria were featured in an episode of “FutureProofing” on Radio 4 on 15th August 2015, their segment starts about 20:25        

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On the Saturday 5th Sep we visited the “Lab Robots” meetup at the Cambridge maker space.  The format of the day was first there was a session of presentations, and then in the afternoon, there were some practical workshop sessions. In the first session several talks were given including Ward Hills from IonScope about a system to integrate a variety of lab hardware (I offered to beta test), Attila Szantner about using Eve Online for pattern recognition, and Matt Wayland on using a lab robot made from a CNC router. The workshop sessions were in 2 groups, the first group was to build an OpenPCR kit, and the second looked at an open Centrifuge project. After that we had a look at some of the projects under-way at the Cambridge makerspace. Here Sam inspects their new “invisible bio-material”. We were assured it is very good.   During the workgroups I was in the group that was trying to build an OpenPCR from a kit. We run out of time on the day, and there were a couple of components that were out of stock when the kit was ordered, so I offered to finish the soldering at the London Hackspace electronics area. This was the resulting assembled PCB board for an OpenPCR ( missing the ADC component) taken a few days later     I took the opportunity to have a look around the Cambridge Makerspace, and they have a very impressive workshop. Lots of cool stuff.   I am currently documenting a build of the OpenPCR kit, as I think that the documentation (on the openpcr.org site) is slightly lacking, especially if you don’t have any experience with surface mount soldering. So I have that documentation as a work in progress here: https://biohackspace.org/openpcr-kit-build/    

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We received a donation of a Tepnel DNA purification system from a lab that was being decommissioned at the University of Exeter. It boots up and initial tests seem good. We have the manual in pdf and we need to obtain or make up the buffers and consumables to start using it properly. ​ I think to make best use of it, it would be good if there was a project lead with some mini-prep experience to take on the role of maintainer. Any volunteers?

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Woo! It’s been warm in the UK, but it’s been hotter in the biolab. How hot? this hot…  

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Bethan, Edo and Ilya were on the Mendel’s Finches podcast. It’s up on soundcloud here. Episode blurb: In this special episode, Bethan and Yan Kay give us an inside-look at the world of synthetic biology. Here, they interview a selection of researchers competing in iGEM, a worldwide synthetic biology competition. And members of the London Biohackspace, a community lab, that promotes access to innovative bioscience projects in a collaborative open-source setting. Be sure to follow the Birkbeck (@BBKiGEM) and UCL (@UCLiGEM) iGEM teams and London Biohackspace (@LondonBioHack) on Twitter to find out more.

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The UCL iGEM boot camp is a week long event designed to provide iGEM participants with a crash course in the skills necessary to compete in the iGEM competition. This years boot camp was attended by team members from University College London’s own 2015 undergraduate team along with team members from Birkbeck University and the community-run London Biohackspace laboratory. The camp primarily consisted of a number of technical workshops designed to help iGEM newcomers (and a few grizzled veterans) develop essential iGEM lab skills such as biobrick design and construction along with bacterial culturing and transformation techniques. Further workshops were also available on topics such as how computational modelling can lead to iGEM success, constructing your own spectrophotometer and how to build an award winning wiki (without having to stay up all night on wiki-freeze deadline day). Previous iGEM participants were on hand throughout the week to provide assistance as well as offer invaluable advice on how this years teams can excel in the iGEM competition (step 1:rob a bank). The week concluded with a mini-jamboree in which each team presented their chosen project and current progress to the rest of the group in a format similar to the iGEM giant jamboree held in Boston at the end of the competition.  

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This project was partially developed at the London Hackspace.. ENTOCYCLE: Natural High-Grade Insect Protein. Entocycle are recreating nature’s natural process and feeding waste food to insects in a bio-refinery in London. Harnessing 150 million years of ‘research and development’, waste human food rescued from landfill will be converted and transformed into 100% organic, natural high grade protein. This locally sourced product can simultaneously; reduce land fill, recycle valuable nutrients and relieve stresses on current unsustainable food supply.

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We received some Pyrocystis Lunula but they didn’t seem to be thriving in our Dino bioreactor, but I recently had a look and they seem to have recovered. I’ve recultured them a couple of times now, and so hopefully we should be able to keep these ones alive for a period of time.

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Jaden brought along a mixed culture of fresh water algae, and we took some shots under the microscope. f

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Equipment required; small screwdriver smd soldering kit (soldering iron, reflow got air gun or oven, solder/solder paste, flux, solder wick, etc) magnifying glass, or other equipment for inspecting SMD soldering, such as stereo microscope digital multimeter     Step 1) assemble the components from the kit BOM (Bill of materials) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jjibaMRJ6sPfQ8HdVYYSyPBvy6KQmuvP8NcvoQBwoO4/edit?usp=sharing   Step 2) solder the surface mount components, using either an oven, or reflow gun. Is easier than it looks. (umm… picture is missing some bits) 3) Solder the remaining components   (umm… picture is missing some bits) 5) inspect the tracks for bridges and poor joints 6) install the wires and other connections; 7) power up     8) install the control app; http://openpcr.org/#run-openpcr run it;  

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