[Closes 27 Nov 2017] PhD on plant gene regulation

PhD available with OpenPlant PI Dr Nicola Patron of the Earlham Institute on design principles for synthetic gene regulation - understanding how cis-regulatory functions are encoded in plant DNA.

Plants are emerging as commercially-relevant production systems for high-value natural products. This requires suites of non-homologous, characterised regulatory elements for applications such as balancing components within a responsive circuit and preventing the build-up of toxic intermediates along a biosynthesis pathway. Plant regulatory sequences are comprised of complex arrangements of protein binding motifs and cis-regulatory elements. Both the primary DNA sequence and secondary DNA structure contribute to regulating gene-expression by recruiting proteins and dictating nucleosome architecture. This project will apply an original synthetic-biology approach to study the relationship between sequence and function utilising comparative genomic approaches to inform the design of synthetic regulatory sequences. This will enable us to understand how cis-regulatory function is encoded in specific DNA sequences. The project will focus on the identification and characterisation of cis-regulatory elements conserved across plants to inform the design of minimal synthetic elements that function across species. Comparative analysis of genome sequences will be used to inform iterative 'design-build-test-learn' cycles in which the function of libraries of designed, synthetic sequences will be analysed. The student will be trained in bioinformatics and comparative genomics analyses, synthetic biology approaches and low and high-throughput plant molecular biology and biotechnology techniques.

More information and application >>

Low cost and open source multi-fluorescence imaging system for teaching and research in biology and bioengineering

Former OpenPlant Fellow Dr Fernan Federici, former OpenPlant PDRA Dr Tim Rudge and colleagues have recently published a pre-print for their low cost and open source multi-fluorescence imaging system for teaching and research in biology and bioengineering, supported by the OpenPlant Fund.

Nuñez, Isaac, Tamara Matute, Roberto Herrera, Juan Keymer, Tim Marzullo, Tim Rudge, and Fernan Federici. "Low cost and open source multi-fluorescence imaging system for teaching and research in biology and bioengineering." bioRxiv (2017): 194324

Examples of images of bacterial colonies and cell-free systems using the microscope. Credit: Federici Lab

Abstract

The advent of easy-to-use open source microcontrollers, off-the-shelf electronics and customizable manufacturing technologies has facilitated the development of inexpensive scientific devices and laboratory equipment. In this study, we describe an imaging system that integrates low-cost and open-source hardware, software and genetic resources. The multi-fluorescence imaging system consists of readily available 470 nm LEDs, a Raspberry Pi camera and a set of filters made with low cost acrylics. This device allows imaging in scales ranging from single colonies to entire plates.

We developed a set of genetic components (e.g. promoters, coding sequences, terminators) and vectors following the standard framework of Golden Gate, which allowed the fabrication of genetic constructs in a combinatorial, low cost and robust manner. In order to provide simultaneous imaging of multiple wavelength signals, we screened a series of long stokes shift fluorescent proteins that could be combined with cyan/green fluorescent proteins. We found CyOFP1, mBeRFP and sfGFP to be the most compatible set for 3-channel fluorescent imaging. We developed open source Python code to operate the hardware to run time-lapse experiments with automated control of illumination and camera and a Python module to analyze data and extract meaningful biological information.

To demonstrate the potential application of this integral system, we tested its performance on a diverse range of imaging assays often used in disciplines such as microbial ecology, microbiology and synthetic biology. We also assessed its potential for STEM teaching in a high school environment, using it to teach biology, hardware design, optics, and programming. Together, these results demonstrate the successful integration of open source hardware, software, genetic resources and customizable manufacturing to obtain a powerful, low cost and robust system for STEM education, scientific research and bioengineering. All the resources developed here are available under open source license

[Closes 30 Nov 2017] GapSummit 2018 open for applications

GapSummit is 'The world’s first global and intergenerational leadership summit in biotechnology' from Global Biotech Revolution and will take place 16-18 April 2018 at St Johns College, Cambridge.

The GapSummit welcomes 100 future bio-leaders (Leaders of Tomorrow) from around the world for a 3-day conference, which aims to "provide the bio-leaders of tomorrow with a comprehensive overview of current and future biotechnology trends and issues, inciting discussion about world challenges that can be met by biotechnological application."

 The GapSummit 2018 will attract more than 60 world leaders and pioneers from the biotech, pharmaceutical & healthcare industry to the University of Cambridge.

APPLY NOW

Deadline 30 Nov 2017

Cafe Synthetique tackles DNA-based Information Storage and DNA Synthesis

Cafe Synthetique on 18 Sep 2017 commanded a full house with plenty of interesting discussion around Pierre Murat's research on DNA-based information storage and Jiahao Huang's work on long chain DNA synthesis.

Pierre Murat from the Department of Chemistry spoke about his research on encoding and decoding synthetic strands of DNA. He presented data to show how he turned (the encoded word) 'Black to 'White', Pierre has also successfully encoded images of Darwin ,Franklin and and Turin! By exploiting differential kinetics of hydrolytic deamination reactions of cytosine and its naturally occurring derivatives, he demonstrated how multiple layers of information can be stored in a single DNA template. He explained how controlled redox reactions allow for interconversion of these DNA-encoded layers of information, encoding a single strand with multiple 'messages'.

Discussion focussed in part, on the challenges of sequencing the complex encoded DNA, including the ultimate test: an outsider successfully decoding a message hidden in DNA from Murat's lab - a challenge many attendees might relish.

Jiahao Huang covered the interesting history of DNA synthesis since it's advent in the 1970's before talking about the exciting work going on at Nuclera Nucleics where heand his colleaguesare developing a next-generation DNA synthesis using engineered terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferases, or TdT. With tehability to synthesise strands tens of bases long already, he hopes to be able to accurately produce long chain DNA strands by the end of this decade, and ultimately whole genomes. Discussion covered, accuracy, large scale production and lead to the inevitable question of cost. With research moving at a rapid pace Jiahao anticipates that a long chain sample will eventually become less than the cost of sending it by FedEx!

OpenPlant Fund supported project publishes on better DNA transfer from Escherichia coli to Bacillus subtilis

Dr Mario Juhas and OpenPlant PI  Dr Jim Ajioka from the Department of Pathology at the University of Cambridge have contributed to creating reliable and efficient systems for the transfer of synthetic DNA between E. coli and B. subtilis, supported by the OpenPlant Fund.

The majority of the good DNA editing techniques have been developed in Escherichia coli; however, Bacillus subtilis is better host for a plethora of synthetic biology and biotechnology applications. 

Using synthetic biology approaches, such as streamlined lambda Red recombineering and Gibson Isothermal Assembly, the team integrated genetic circuits  encoding the lysis genes of bacteriophages MS2, ΦX174 and lambda, the thermosensitive repressor and the T7 RNA polymerase into the E. coli chromosome.

In this system the T7 RNA polymerase regulated by the thermosensitive repressor drives the expression of the phage lysis genes. T7 RNA polymerase significantly increases efficiency of cell lysis and transfer of the plasmid and bacterial artificial chromosome-encoded DNA from the lysed E. coli into B. subtilis. The T7 RNA polymerase-driven inducible cell lysis system is therefore suitable for the efficient cell lysis and transfer of the DNA engineered in E. coli to other naturally competent hosts, such as B. subtilis.

The research obtained support from the SynBio Fund and OpenPlant Fund

The full article can be read here.

Image attribution: Debivort at the English language Wikipedia
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Cafe Synthetique highlights graduate student work in synthetic biology: algae, arsenic testing and automated labs

Cafe Synthetique this August gave the floor to a talented collection of graduate students working on synthetic biology projects around the University of Cambridge and primarily from OpenPlant Labs. It was an excellent insight into some cutting edge science and how these early career researchers view the future of biological engineering.

Jan Lyczakowski (Department of Biochemistry) from Prof Paul Dupree’s lab described his efforts to engineer the structure of the plant sugar xylan in order to extract more biofuel from woody biomass. By using an enzyme from the plant model organism Arabidopsis thaliana, several times more xylose sugar could be extracted and fermented into ethanol using engineered E.coli bacteria. Jan also brought along some 3D-printed models of xylan to provide a hands-on demonstration of the structure!

Algal synthetic biology featured heavily as Aleix Gorchs Rivera, Stefan Grossfurthner and Patrick Hickland from Prof Alison Smith’s Lab, in the Department of Plant Sciences, presented different approaches to engineering algae to generate valuable products, such as pigments and medicinal compounds.

Patrick’s work focuses on tools to engineer the brown alga Phaeodactylum tricornutum, which is not a common lab organism but has useful features like a rapid growth rate and high accumulation of lipids like omega 3 fatty acids. Specifically, Patrick has engineered an inducible on/off genetic switch in the alga and is now applying it to manipulate metabolic pathways and boost production of useful compounds.

Aleix and Stefan are both working with the more common model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Aleix presented his work building inducible genetic circuits to express in the algal chloroplast, which is a major site of protein production. He aims to tightly dose expression of interesting metabolic genes and even antibodies. Stefan is constructing a metabolic pathway for engineering and manipulating cytosolic production of sesquiterpenes, an interesting family of compounds including the anti-malarial drug artemisinin. He presented his current progress during the first year of his PhD and future plans.

From eukaryotes to cell-free biochemical systems, Tess Skyrme represented the Sensors Centre for Doctoral Training (Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology), where 12 students have spent the summer designing and prototyping an arsenic biosensor. Their sensor produces glucose oxidase in the presence of arsenic which is detected electrochemically on a device that can send data from remote field locations such as wells in Bangladesh and Nepal, where arsenic contamination has been described as the ‘largest mass poisoning of a population in history’ (WHO, 2002). The team built an arsenic sensitive genetic circuit, tested multiple electrochemistries, and designed an open source potentiometer that is 10% the cost of commercially available options for almost equivalent functionality. They are now focused on integrating the device components ahead of Sensors Day on 20 Oct 2017.

Looking to the future and calling for a revolution in the way that biological experiments are performed, Clayton Rabideau provided an introduction to the current state of the art in machine learning and automation in synthetic biology. His presentation marked the first appearance of Mario Brothers at Cafe Synthetique, with a demonstration of how machine learning over many generations can result in large efficiency gains compared.

Efficiency was also a key driver for the increase in labs moving to automated liquid handling through open source lab robots like OpenTrons, new technologies such as the Labcyte Echo, which is available in Cambridge as part of the OpenPlant Synthetic Biology Centre, and fully automated ‘cloud labs’. However, Clayton also highlighted the ‘reproducibility crisis’ in experimental science and how increased use of machines to minimise human error might help. He ended by predicting that in the coming decades graduate students would spend far less time in the lab. This went down well with an audience whose most automated lab experience so far was reportedly ‘multi-channel pipettes’.

It’s the first time that Cafe Synthetique has featured a full line up of graduate students and we hope to repeat the successful format in the near future. If you are a graduate student working on a synthetic biology related topic and would like to present at the next Cafe Synthetique Grad Talks, get in touch!

New Royal Society Report: Synthetic Biology - does industry get it?

On 8 February 2017, the Royal Society hosted a conference that posed the question Synthetic biology – does industry get it? It brought together nearly 200 experts from academia, industry and government to provide an honest and open appraisal of how industry is using synthetic biology, acknowledging successes and strengths but also looking at what barriers still need to be overcome.

A report from the meeting has now been published, summarising the discussions that took place and the key points raised.

Issues including the global energy challenge, regulation and public acceptance of synthetic biology, and finding the right talent and skills were all raised and great industrial interest in synthetic biology was demonstrated.

In answer to the question, “Does industry get it?”, the Royal Society report that:

"there was a clear sense that industry is very interested in synthetic biology but that there remains a conservativism that holds back its wider implementation. Industry speakers encouraged synthetic biologists to look at solving the unmet needs of industry and demonstrate the benefits that future products will bring. Researchers should avoid the risk of overselling their new and exciting science - there needs to be a balance between ambitious, long-term scientific targets and working within the existing product development lifetimes in industry...Synthetic biology stands on the cusp – as the costs of processes fall, the moment where rapid growth in industrialisation will take place is nearly upon us."

The full report can be read here.

Commentary on a Major Advance in Plastid Transformation

OpenPlant PI Professor Julian Hibberd (Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge) has summarised advances towards efficient plastid transformation in Arabidopsis thaliana as part of a new paper in Plant Physiology

This commentary follows 'Efficient Plastid Transformation in Arabidopsis' reported by Pal Maliga's team in this month's Plant Physiology, which could be regarded as a major advance in plastid transformation. Stable manipulation of the plastid genome of flowering plants was first reported nearly 30 years agoby Svab et al. However, for key species including cereal crops including Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), the spectinomycin-based approach using the addition of the aadA gene has proved ineffective.

Hibberd cites Parker et al who showed that ecotypes of Arabidopsis vary in their sensitivity to spectinomycin due to the mutant allele of the nuclear gene ACC2. Its product is targeted to plastids and so provides an alternate to the partially plastid-encoded acetyl-Coenzyme A carboxylase that is inactivated by spectinomycin. Parker et al. proposed that their findings may provide a route to increase efficiency of chloroplast transformation in the Brassicaceae.

Yu et al. (2017) now provide strong support for this conjecture showing that by removing redundancy afforded by ACC2, efficient selection for transplastomic events can be achieved in Arabidopsis.

The next challenge is therefore to identify procedures and ecotypes that facilitate this conversion of transplastomic callus of Arabidopsis into stable and heritable plant material.

Hibberd's full commentary can be read here.

Call for exhibits at Biomaker Fayre 2017

Biomaker Fayre 2017 will include demonstrations of open source biological instruments, lab and field equipment featuring over 40 teams who participated in the 2017 Biomaker Challenge. All others with maker projects related to science and biology are invited to exhibit! We'll have everything from spectrometers for measuring the colour of penguin guano, microfluidics for tissue culture, to ultrasonic systems for measuring plant height and 3D printed modular microscopes.

There'll also be some fantastic talks just before at the Open Technology Workshop. COme and learn about everything from distributed 3D printing in Africa, open hardware in Brazil and universities collaborating with companies to create open technologies in Denmark. 

Want to exhibit?

• Please do! Biomaker Fayre exhibitors can attend the Open Technology Workshop free of charge.
• Every individual exhibitor should register using the esales form under 'concessions'
• Each exhibit must also complete an exhibit registration form

For more information and the schedule take a look at the Open Technology webpage

[Closes 31 Oct 2017] University of Cambridge Lectureship in Synthetic Biology

Applications are invited for a University Lectureship in Synthetic Biology at the University of Cambridge. This is a tenure-track position based in the Department of Engineering and is supported by the School of Biological Sciences (SBS). We particularly encourage applicants who complement current research within Engineering, SBS and across the University, and who are motivated to explore interdisciplinary collaborations.

The successful candidate will have an established DNA-based experimental research program in a topic including, but not limited to:

• Design and engineering of synthetic genetic circuits (both cellular and cell-free)
• Genome engineering
• Biosensing and biological signal processing
• Spatio-temporal gene regulation
• Engineering of multicellular interactions and tissue structure/function

In addition, research may combine theoretical and numerical approaches with experiments. The successful candidate will have, or be expected to develop, a record of world-class research commensurate with the international reputation and top-rank research rating of the Department.

The candidate will be expected to contribute exciting and innovative teaching material to our rapidly growing bioengineering courses in the Engineering curriculum, with teaching and administration accounting for approximately 40% of the role. Teaching responsibilities will include contributing to undergraduate courses, supervising undergraduate projects, examining and supervising postgraduate students.

More information and to apply >>

OpenPlant researchers publish a strategy to improve conversion of plant biomass to sugars for bioenergy

A new publication from the lab of OpenPlant PI Prof. Paul Dupree, University of Cambridge in Biotechnology for Biofuels describes work to improve processing of softwood to biofuels using a synthetic biology strategy to express and assay conifer cell wall synthesis enzymes.

Lyczakowski, J.J., Wicher, K.B., Terrett, O.M., Faria-Blanc, N., Yu, X., Brown, D., Krogh, K.B.R.M., Dupree, P., and Busse-Wicher, M. (2017). Removal of glucuronic acid from xylan is a strategy to improve the conversion of plant biomass to sugars for bioenergy. Biotechnology for Biofuels 10: 224

Abstract

Background: Plant lignocellulosic biomass can be a source of fermentable sugars for the production of second generation biofuels and biochemicals. The recalcitrance of this plant material is one of the major obstacles in its conversion into sugars. Biomass is primarily composed of secondary cell walls, which is made of cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin. Xylan, a hemicellulose, binds to the cellulose microfibril and is hypothesised to form an interface between lignin and cellulose. Both softwood and hardwood xylan carry glucuronic acid side branches. As xylan branching may be important for biomass recalcitrance and softwood is an abundant, non-food competing, source of biomass it is important to investigate how conifer xylan is synthesised.

Results: Here, we show using Arabidopsis gux mutant biomass that removal of glucuronosyl substitutions of xylan can allow 30% more glucose and over 700% more xylose to be released during saccharification. Ethanol yields obtained through enzymatic saccharification and fermentation of gux biomass were double those obtained for non-mutant material. Our analysis of additional xylan branching mutants demonstrates that absence of GlcA is unique in conferring the reduced recalcitrance phenotype. As in hardwoods, conifer xylan is branched with GlcA. We use transcriptomic analysis to identify conifer enzymes that might be responsible for addition of GlcA branches onto xylan in industrially important softwood. Using a combination of in vitro and in vivo activity assays, we demonstrate that a white spruce (Picea glauca) gene, PgGUX, encodes an active glucuronosyl transferase. Glucuronic acid introduced by PgGUX reduces the sugar release of Arabidopsis gux mutant biomass to wild-type levels indicating that it can fulfil the same biological function as native glucuronosylation.

Conclusion: Removal of glucuronic acid from xylan results in the largest increase in release of fermentable sugars from Arabidopsis plants that grow to the wild-type size. Additionally, plant material used in this work did not undergo any chemical pretreatment, and thus increased monosaccharide release from gux biomass can be achieved without the use of environmentally hazardous chemical pretreatment procedures. Therefore, the identification of a gymnosperm enzyme, likely to be responsible for softwood xylan glucuronosylation, provides a mutagenesis target for genetically improved forestry trees.

[Closes 11 Oct 2017] Knowledge Frontiers: International Interdisciplinary Research Projects

The British Academy is inviting proposals from UK-based researchers across all disciplines within the social sciences and humanities to develop international interdisciplinary research projects with development impact, in collaboration with colleagues from the natural, engineering and/or medical sciences.

Aims

The purpose of each project will be to develop new ideas and methods to bear on existing international challenges and to deliver policy-relevant outputs which could potentially improve the welfare of people in developing countries. Proposals that creatively tackle cultural, public and/or policy controversies, or explore how such controversies have been understood and responded to in the past, would be particularly welcome. Such controversies might include, but need not be limited to, changing climate, movements across borders, socio-biological problems, artificial intelligence, medical humanities, people and infrastructures, and responses to or understanding of diseases and pathogens.

The complexities of global change and the proliferation of diverse communities of knowledge, practice and intelligence highlight the necessity of collaborative engagement between communities of practice, disciplines, capacities and borders. The British Academy is keen to support and work with proposals that strengthen understanding of challenges in this context and engage with questions concerning the relationship between expertise, public understanding and policy delivery. We are interested in projects of interdisciplinary nature that examine encounters between academic, professional and lay knowledge, and how valid knowledge, knowledge associations and evidence are built and developed, communicated and disseminated, and the factors which can serve as barriers to this in different political or cultural settings.

Eligibility requirements

The lead applicant must be based at a UK university or research institute, and be of postdoctoral or above status (or have equivalent research experience). International co-applicants, and in particular co-applicants from OECD DAC countries, are strongly encouraged.

The British Academy will require applicants to demonstrate that their proposals are ODA eligible. ODA eligibility is an essential criterion – projects will only be deemed eligible for funding if they can demonstrate that they satisfy ODA eligibility criteria.

Value and Duration

Awards are of one-year in duration and are available for up to £50,000. Funding can be used to support research and/or clerical assistance; research expenses and consumables; travel and subsistence; and networking, meeting and conference costs. Awards are not funded on a full economic costs basis, with contributions to overheads an ineligible cost. 

Application Process

Application deadline: Wednesday 11 October 2017 (17.00 UK Time)

Read more >>

Rapid transporter regulation prevents substrate flow traffic jams in boron transport

Researchers at the John Innes Centre collaborated with colleagues from the University of Tokyo to understand the regulation of boron transport in Arabidopsis. Nutrient uptake relies on both a regulatory circuit within cells, and a coordinated behaviour across tissues. This work used both computational and molecular biology tools to model the effects of slowing boron uptake, discovering that this peturbation of the system leads to traffic-jam like behaviour of nutrient flow. Read more about it in this JIC news article. Experiments were partly funded through the OpenPlant Fund.

Sotta, N., Duncan, S., Tanaka, M., Takafumi, S., Marée, A.F., Fujiwara, T., Grieneisen, V.A., 2017. Rapid transporter regulation prevents substrate flow traffic jams in boron transport. eLife 2017;6: e27038.

Abstract

Nutrient uptake by roots often involves substrate-dependent regulated nutrient transporters. For robust uptake, the system requires a regulatory circuit within cells and a collective, coordinated behaviour across the tissue. A paradigm for such systems is boron uptake, known for its directional transport and homeostasis, as boron is essential for plant growth but toxic at high concentrations. In Arabidopsis thaliana Boron up-take occurs via diffusion facilitators (NIPs) and exporters (BORs), each presenting distinct polarity. Intriguingly, although boron soil concentrations are homogenous and stable, both transporters manifest strikingly swift boron-dependent regulation. Through mathematical modelling, we demonstrate that slower regulation of these transporters leads to physiologically detrimental oscillatory behaviour. Cells become periodically exposed to potentially cytotoxic boron levels, and nutrient throughput to the xylem becomes hampered. We conclude that, while maintaining homeostasis, swift transporter regulation within a polarised tissue context is critical to prevent intrinsic traffic-jam like behaviour of nutrient flow.

[Closes 31 Sep 2017] PhD Studentship in sex chromosome evolution in liverworts

Evolution of sex chromosomes is well-studied in organisms in which sex is expressed in the diploid phase. In such organisms the lack of recombination and the asymmetry in haploidy are assumed to lead to the progressive decay of the Y chromosome. In organisms in which sex is expressed in the haploid phase both U and V chromosomes are equally devoid of recombination and show no asymmetry in recombination suppression. This provides a unique opportunity to tease apart the effect of this two factors on the evolutionary trajectory of sex chromosomes. We are using a combination of classical genetic and comparative genomic approaches to test hypotheses concerning sex chromosome evolution in haploid dioecy using liverworts as a suitable model system (Marchantia polymorpha, Preissia quadrata and many more).

The goal of this project is to (1) develop a new methodology for capturing and sequencing complete sex chromosomes in plant model systems and (2) to reconstruct their evolutionary history both at the gene and structural levels. Therefore, this position involves molecular laboratory work to develop and optimize capturing and sequencing protocols; bioinformatics work to analyze and interpret the generated next- generation sequencing data; and evolutionary and functional genetic analysis of the evolution of sex chromosomes in the model plant Marchantia polymorpha and other liverwort species. This project is aimed at addressing one of the fundamental questions of evolutionary biology, the genetic makeup of sex chromosomes in a haploid plant model organism, via developing a new cutting-edge method for third-generation sequencing.

The student will work 18 months at University of Zurich, Switzerland. The other 18 months at BaseClear, The Netherlands. Peter Szovenyi, University of Zurich; Prof. Elena Conti, University of Zurich, Prof. Michael Lenhard, University of Potsdam; Dr. Walter Pirovano, Dr. Adalberto Costessi and Dr. Daniël Duijsings, BaseClear BV, The Netherlands will jointly supervise the successful candidate. 

This is project is conducted in the framework of PlantHUB. PlantHUB is funded by the H2020 PROGRAMME Marie Curie Actions – People, Initial Training Networks (ITN).

Advocacy Science Explained - using biotechnology as a case study

Cambridge researcher Ksenia Gerasimova unravels how advocacy science has changed political discourse in science, and the general perception of the role of science in contemporary society.

Biotechnology is an extreme example of how science has had to confront issues such as the place and role of science in society, the need for scientists to communicate and advocate their research to the public and policy-makers, secure funding and address the ethical concerns relating to their research. 

This paper discusses the use of term ‘advocacy science’ which is communication of science that goes beyond simple reporting of scientific findings, using two case studies in biotechnology.

• The first, is the 'Puzstai case', when on the documentary, 'World in Action' in 1998, Dr Arpad Puzstai from the Rowett Institute of Research in Scotland raised his concerns over GM foods, in regards to a study conducted at the institute aiming to transfer a snowdrop plant gene to potato (Puzstai 1991). The UK media reacted in force. This sparked the debate over the use of GM crops, and also provoked another about the very way scientific experiments are conducted, interpreted and communicated. 
• The second case study is the Seralini Case, when in 2012 a publication by Professor Gilles-Éric Séralini, at the University of Caen, France, on the 'Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize' catalysed the discussion not only amongst the media, but also within the scientific community on where the moral aspects of science and scientific communication stands.

Over a relatively short period of time 1998-2012 a large change in the perception of science had happened: it was now seen in a postmodernist style as a social construct, including the natural scientists themselves.

The paper argues that advocacy science should be used to distinguish the engagement of modern civil society organisations to interpret scientific knowledge for their lobbying. It illustrates how this new communicative process has changed not only the politics surrounding science, but our perception of the role of science in contemporary society. It cites OpenPlant as an example of where generic lower-level tools that are largely free of IP constraints can be freely shared to promote innovation in plant synthetic biology (OpenPlant 2016).

Gerasimova suggests that the controversies in the GM debate have contributed not just to policy-making for GM crops, but also to the way biotechnological science, and possibly even science in general, is communicated and perceived. 

 The full article can be read at: 
Gerasimova, K., 2017. Advocacy Science: Explaining the Term with Case Studies from Biotechnology. Science and Engineering Ethics, pp.1-23.

Biomaker Challenge - building collaborations through low-cost instrumentation

Biomaker Challenge is a four-month programme challenging interdisciplinary teams to build low-cost sensors and instruments for biology. The programme aims to facilitate exchange between the biological and physical sciences, engineering, and humanities for the development of open source biological instrumentation using commodity electronics and DIY approaches.

The inaugural 2017 cohort comprises 130 participants working in 41 teams on biological and biomedical devices, instruments, and sensors.  Participating teams received a Biomaker Toolkit and a discretionary budget for additional sensors, components, consumables, and mechanical fabrication worth up to £1000.

Teams of all sizes were considered for the grant and range from an individual to twelve people. Interdisciplinarity within participating teams is prioritised and although most participants are students or staff at the University of Cambridge, John Innes Centre or the Earlham Institute, external team members are welcome and included designers from the Royal College of Art, computer scientists from ARM, local artists, makers, and entrepreneurs.

During the challenge, we offer assistance and support providing components and access to prototyping facilities in Cambridge such as Cambridge Makespace and the Media Studio on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. We also run periodic technical workshops and meetups to encourage teams to interact and help share skills and ideas. Participating teams will document a full set of assembly/fabrication instructions, images, and a list of components used, which are made publicly accessible via GitHub. This will enable others to replicate and build on their work for their own research questions. The challenge culminates on 21 October 2017 in a public exhibit, the Biomaker Fayre, where participants will demonstrate their creations and prizes will be awarded for especially creative and enabling projects.

The Challenge will repeat in 2018 and we look forward to seeing the projects develop with a new cohort of participants to further increase access to low-cost, open access biological tools and technologies.

Example Projects

Real-Time monitoring of cell proliferation

An absorbance sensor that can be used inside a cell culture incubator for real-time monitoring of culture medium pH and cell density. The system is able to automatically transmit this data to an email server for remote monitoring of cultured cells.

Microfluidic Turntable for molecular diagnostic testing

An Arduino controlled turntable with a stroboscope for disk visualisation on screen and optical detection for absorbance and fluorescence measurements. The disc, fabricated using a laser cutter and paper plotter, is rotated by an Arduino controlled motor. Fluid actuation is also controlled by Arduino, changing the rotation direction and revolutions per second to achieve pumping, mixing and separation.

A programmable staging mount, and an imaging platform for a microfluidics based conditioned learning hub for motile bacterial cells.

By developing a maze traversal challenge, different scenarios for chemotactic bacterial colonies to employ their decision-making machinery and navigate through the maze will be assessed. This may lead to an understanding of cognition, memory and learning in bacterial colonies.

John Innes Centre researchers develop plant-made synthetic polio vaccine

Researchers at the John Innes Centre, including OpenPlant PI Prof George Lomonossoff, and collaborators, have published research to produce a new polio vaccine in plants, using the HyperTrans transient expression system. The work, funded by the World Health Organisation, was published in Nature Communications. It is hoped that this new polio vaccine will be a move towards global eradication of the disease. The publication was covered by JIC News and the BBC.

Marsian, J., Fox, H., Bahar, M.W., Kotecha, A., Fry, E.E., Stuart, D.I., Macadam, A.J., Rowlands, D.J., & Lomonossoff, G.P. (2017) Plant-made polio type 3 stabilized VLPs—a candidate synthetic polio vaccine. Nature Communications 8, Article number: 245.

Abstract

Poliovirus (PV) is the causative agent of poliomyelitis, a crippling human disease known since antiquity. PV occurs in two distinct antigenic forms, D and C, of which only the D form elicits a robust neutralizing response. Developing a synthetically produced stabilized virus-like particle (sVLP)-based vaccine with D antigenicity, without the drawbacks of current vaccines, will be a major step towards the final eradication of poliovirus. Such a sVLP would retain the native antigenic conformation and the repetitive structure of the original virus particle, but lack infectious genomic material. In this study, we report the production of synthetically stabilized PV VLPs in plants. Mice carrying the gene for the human PV receptor are protected from wild-type PV when immunized with the plant-made PV sVLPs. Structural analysis of the stabilized mutant at 3.6 Å resolution by cryo-electron microscopy and single-particle reconstruction reveals a structure almost indistinguishable from wild-type PV3.

BoomTown Fair, August 2017

Blog post written by Emma McKechnie-Welsch, and reproduced with permission from The SAW Trust. Original blog post can be found here: http://sawtrust.org/news/boomtown-festival-august-2017

Science tent at Kidztown

BoomTown Fair is an annual music and arts festival held in Winchester. It attracts up to 60,000 people a year. The festival hosts a wide range of performances across its many stages, providing visually impressive themed areas on-site.

This is also the case with Kidztown, the diverse and interactive family area. OpenPlant and the SAW Trust were key contributors to the Kidztown science tent. Children here were introduced to different natural plant-based products in a fun and engaging way. This included a carefully devised potion-making, craft and spell-writing stand.

The stand, titled "Marvellous Medicines," revolved around our periodic table of natural products. The children were tasked with making a magical potion, picking just one component from each block of the periodic table for their ingredients. The blue block contributed a plant material that would provide the colour pigmentation for the potion, including the magical element of colour change in different pH solutions. The red block contained plants with appealing scents, extracted as essential oils, to give the potion a delightful smell. Finally, the yellow block contained citrus fruit. The citric acid in this can be used to observe the colour change.

Periodic table of plants

Making the Potions

Once the children had selected their ingredients, they ground up the blue item (either red cabbage, berries, turmeric or selected flowers) using a pestle and mortar. They then practised using pipettes, adding 75 percent ethanol to extract the pigment. This was transferred to their potion flask. They next added the essential oil corresponding to their red item and 1 millilitre of bicarbonate of soda solution to observe the first colour change. Last of all, 35 millilitres of citric acid solution was added to create the final colour of their potion. It was explained that citric acid was the compound in citrus fruit that made it taste so sharp.

Whilst a slight fizz was observed upon adding the citric acid, due to it reacting with the bicarbonate of soda, only a very small amount of the bicarb was present. The final step involved adding a green slime of more bicarb mixed with washing up liquid, which caused the potions to fizz over and release the essential oil smell. If the kids wanted an extra colourful potion they also added food colouring gel.

Magical ingredients

Colourful results

Making potions

Marvellous Medicine's Art and Writing

Artist Molly Barrett helped the children create their own artistic potion bottle, cutting out bottle shapes from cardboard and sticking dried plant products to them. Our writer Ali Pritchard asked the children to think about what they wanted their potion to do, and they wrote a spell to cast over their potion for it to work. This was written on acetate and stuck to their art creation. 

Marvellous Medicines team members

Throughout, the children learned about a plant’s ability to make different compounds that define their features such as colour, scent and taste. They extracted the colour pigment themselves and used other natural extracts to complete their potions, observing how we can use things that plants make for our own products. The older children also learned about pH and colour indicators, a classic chemistry practical they will no doubt carry out in secondary school. A further use for plants was discovered in the art stand: the plant materials could be used as 3D elements to decorate the potion bottles.

The finished potions

The children let their creativity run wild by imagining what their natural product potion could achieve. Whilst compounds produced by plants may not be able to turn glitter into gold or the sea into Ribena, hopefully the children took away the idea that many of the compounds produced within plants can be used in ways they previously hadn't thought about. Not least, the children had lots of fun exploring ideas around magical plant extracts and many of the children returned to the stand later on.

Marvellous Medicines couldn’t have been a success without the hard-working team, who over three days helped the children through all the tasks. A big thank you goes to the team and to BoomTown for having us!

The Marvellous Medicines Team

Cambridge Consultant Synthetic Biology PhD Studentship

Cambridge Consultants is building an exciting new business in biotechnology, particularly synthetic biology. They’re working to bring together biology, chemistry and engineering to design and build engineered biological systems. As part of this mission, they're looking for a bright, motivated PhD student to join the team on an internship.

No deadline has been given but the advert was posted in Aug 2017.

With a strong background in biochemistry or molecular biology, the successful applicant will work alongside our scientists and engineers to apply their scientific skills and knowledge to our synthetic biology projects.  They’ll learn how new technology is applied in a business context and the challenges this presents.  

This is a three-month internship with flexible timing.

More information >>

[Closes 1 Sep 2017] Plant Synthetic Biology Assistant/Associate Professor (University of Nebraska)

Plant Synthetic Biology Assistant/Associate Professor The University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) is committed to conducting world-class research in plant biochemistry and has recently secured a $20 million Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) Grant from the NSF to establish the Center for Root and Rhizobiome Innovation (CRRI). Reflecting the institutional commitment to building infrastructure in plant biochemistry, UNL is seeking applicants for nine-month (academic year) tenure-leading Assistant Professor or Associate Professor faculty position (80% research and 20% teaching) in the Department of Biochemistry and the Center for Plant Science Innovation.

They will address the development and application of synthetic biology tools to address questions central to plant biology that contribute to crop productivity and/or quality.

Required qualifications include a PhD or equivalent in biochemistry, biology, molecular biology, plant physiology or related field; a minimum of two years of postdoctoral experience; and a strong record of original research as evidenced by peer- reviewed publications. For Assistant Professor, the incumbent is expected to develop an internationally recognized research program that attracts federal, commodity, international foundation, and/or industry funding leading to research results published in refereed scientific journals and presented at professional meetings. Applicants at the Associate Professor levels must have an externally supported research program and/or sufficient private sector experience, with publication, patent, and presentation outcomes demonstrating sustained and recognized research productivity. The incumbent will broadly address the development of synthetic biology tools, which may include but are not limited to those involving genome editing, gene stacking, and/or RNA-based control of gene expression and apply these tools for studies of photosynthesis, central carbon metabolism, specialized metabolism or other biochemical or biological processes that lead to improved crop germplasm. The ability to apply computational methods for use of large data sets in synthetic biology tool development is also desired. The university offers state of the art proteomics and metabolomics core facilities in the Center for Biotechnology and high-speed computing resources in the Holland Computing Center. Extensive field facilities, state-of-the-art image-based phenotyping instrumentation, breeding resources, and crop transformation core capacity are available to support translational research. This position is part of the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources initiative in Stress Biology, which offers a highly collaborative environment to develop focused research programs linked with modern biochemical methodologies, metabolic engineering, metabolomics, genomics, and computational approaches. A competitive start-up package and appropriate laboratory and office space will be offered.

The incumbent will contribute to the teaching mission of the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources and in particular will develop and teach undergraduate and graduate courses in the biochemistry core curriculum. It is expected that the incumbent will contribute to recruitment, retention and placement activities; incorporation of outcomes assessment; engagement in instructional improvement; mentoring undergraduate and graduate students; and serve on department, college, and UNL committees as appropriate.

To learn more about the University of Nebraska, the Department of Biochemistry and the Center for Plant Science Innovation see http://biochem.unl.edu ; http://www.unl.edu/psi/ .

How to Apply

To view details of the position and make application, go to http://employment.unl.edu Search for position F_170058. Click on “Apply to this job.”