“Do it Yourself” Bioreactors
The lab harnesses the bioreactor tools used in microbial cultivation to tackle various specific needs such as optogenetic control, anaerobic cultivation, and hydrogen metabolism. Check out the blog article in popular MAKE magazine and a perspective article to gain a glimpse.
https://makezine.com/2016/07/18/arduino-powered-bioreactors-make-home-experimentation-affordable/
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Teuta Pilizota and Ya-Tang Yang “Do It Yourself” Microbial Cultivation Techniques for Synthetic and Systems Biology: Cheap, Fun, and Flexible, Front. Microbiol., 30 July 2018
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.01666
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​Digital Microfluidics
Along the line of low cost, do-it-yourself digital microfluidics, Abdelgawad and Wheeler have previously reported low-cost, rapid prototyping of digital microfluidics. Fobel et al., has also reported DropBot as an open source digital microfluidic control system. Alistar and Gaudenz have also developed the battery-powered OpenDrop platform, which is based on field effect transistor array and dc actuation.
Prof. Yang’s group has developed an education kit based on digital microfluidics(Guo et al., submitted). we present a digital microfluidics education kit based on commercially sourced printed circuit board(PCB) that allows the user to assemble and get hands-on experience with digital microfluidics. PCB fee-for-service is widely available, and hence we think it is a viable low cost solution for education provided that digital design files can be shared.A protocol for luminol-based chemiluminescence experiment is reported as a specific example. It also has fluorescent imaging capability and closed humidified enclosure based on an ultrasonic atomizer to prevent evaporation. The kit can be assembled within a short period of time and with minimal training in electronics and soldering. The kit allows both undergraduate/graduate students and enthusiasts to handle obtain hands-experience microfluidics in an intuitive way and be trained to gain familiarity with digital microfluidics.
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Bioreactors
Carbon dioxide (CO2) fixation is the most central biological process connecting the inanimate and living world. Out of the six known carbon fixation pathways found in nature, the Calvin–Benson–Bassham (CBB) cycle is the primary carbon assimilation pathway of the biosphere. Photoautotrophs, such as plants, algae and cyanobacteria fix about 300 gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere annually. In the last decade, efforts to manipulate carbon fixation have been extended beyond the scope of photoautotrophs by attempts to genetically engineer model heterotrophs, such as Escherichia coli (E. coli) to recombinantly express carbon fixation pathways. citric acid cycle is a key metabolic process that convert acetate in the form of acetyl-Coa and release CO2. The reductive citric acid cycle (rTCA) is simply the reverse of citric acid cycle. Quiet astonishingly, the reductive citric acid cycle consumes only ~3 ATP equivalent to fix one CO2 molecule and is most energy efficient. In comparison, CBB cycle consumes up to ~9 ATP to fix one CO2 molecule. In short, based on rTCA cycle, Prof. Yang’s lab converted the common lab, sugar-eating (heterotrophic) E. coli bacterium to producing biomass (mixotrophically) from CO2, hydrogen, and malate. The bacterium may provide the infrastructure for the future renewable production of food and green fuels with renewable energy.
Autonomous drone project
Since the late 1990s, the so-called micro air vehicle(MAVs) have attracted substantial and growing interests in the engineering and science community. The MAV was originally defined as a vehicle with a maximal dimension of 15 cm or less, which is comparable to the size of small birds, or bats, and a flight speed of 10-20 m/s . Equipped with a video camera of a sensor, these vehicles can perform surveillance and reconnaissance, targeting, and biochemical sensing at remote or other dangerous locations.
There is a great potential for interdiscpline research between biologists and engineers because micro air vehicle and biological flyer share similar dimensions. In addition, biological flyer posses neuron-based control capability that far exceed the current state of the state of art electronics-based control specifically in terms of power efficiency.
Prof Yang's group is currently engineering Do-it-yourself micro air vehicle or drone to enable neuromorphic chip guided flight of drone.
In particular, we are interested in using ~100 neuron scale to control mobile robot such as drone