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Revision as of 11:12, 6 September 2015

""

Freiburg Science Fair - Inspire the public for science

  • Cougar

    Preparations

  • Lions

    Explaining

  • Snowalker

    Take a look at DNA

  • Howling

    Presentation

Excited children, curious tourists and the magic of DNA wrapped around a piece of wood

On a sunny weekend in July, our team was offered the opportunity to inspire the public for synthetic biology at the local annual science fair. In the heart of Freiburg's old town center we explained the key of life: DNA - the genetic information of each and every cell.

Isolating DNA

While giving curious visitors the chance to extract DNA from bananas and tomatoes, we aimed at illustrating the importance and power of this small molecule. People of all ages and different backgrounds were fascinated by the simple experiment at our iGEM booth. Attracted by flasks with colourful liquids everyone passing by took the time not only to visualize DNA but also to learn something about our project.

The DiaCHIP Game

After a short overwiew about the principle behind the DiaCHIP, children as well as adults could immediately use our new diagnostic tool. Therefore, we had prepared a game in which the participants examined blood samples of four different patients. For every patient a different signal on the chip was obtained. The wanna-be doctors just needed to match the signal to the corresponding antigen from a list of several diseases.

On-stage Interview

Both, the game explaining our iGEM project and the simple experimental introduction to genetics were very popular among the visitors. Since our booth was constantly overcrowded, we were rewarded with an on-stage interview right in front of the main entrance of the famous cathedral of Freiburg. We appreciated the chance to advertise iGEM and our project.

Here we provide a simple protocol for DNA isolation from fruits:

Materials needed:

  • Lysis buffer:
    • 5 g NaCl
    • 50 ml dishwashing detergent (the use of different colored dishwashing detergent fascinates the experimenter)
    • 450 ml Water
  • 70% - 99% ethanol (ice cold)

Workflow:

  • smash one half of a banana with a fork within a beaker
  • add approximately 25 ml of Lysis buffer and stir the solution with the fork until you get a more or less homogenous solution
  • filter the solution through a paper filter into a new beaker to get rid of the crude cell fragments
  • put 1-2 ml of the filtered solution into a test-tube
  • slowly pipette the ice cold ethanol into the test-tube
  • two phases of alcohol and water are formed with precipitated DNA being visible in the alcohol phase