The Wellesley Human-Computer Interaction Lab and the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose are collaborating to create an interactive museum exhibit that teaches fundamental Synthetic Biology concept in innovative ways. The exhibit will have both a digital and a wet lab component that complement each other to convey basic principles of SynBio and raise awareness of the excitement and complexity of the field.

 The premise of the exhibit is that museum visitors will take on the role of a scientist and engineer bacteria that can help explorers on scientific missions in extreme environments, including Mars, Antarctica, and the Deep Sea. Museum visitors will tinker with various tangible representations of BioBricks, which are divided into the categories “resource” genes and “need” genes (e.g. “if there is Carbon Dioxide”, then “make Oxygen”). Users can combine the two parts to form a valid logical statement that can be inserted into a digital bacterial cell. The simulation will then display the transformation and multiplication of the bacteria, and allow the user to deploy and test it in the new environment.