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Synthetic Biology for Teachers

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Synthetic Biology for Teachers Synthetic Biology for Teachers introduction | acknowledgments | manual This teacher’s booklet will minimize the barrier for trying the units we offer. Let us know what you need and how it goes. You have an idea for improving and extending the units? Please email us BioBuilder.org Teacher manual BioBuilder For the last decade teachers have introduced genetic engineering techniques to students. It is becoming commonplace for students in Biology and AP Biology courses to conduct a standard set of “experiments” using gel electrophoresis and bacterial transformation techniques. Students who perform these experiments learn several basic techniques but that is where the laboratory experience ends. There is little room for student inquiry or creativity. The students are more technicians than scientists. A solution to this problem comes not genetic engineering and microbiology from biology but the relatively new field of methods in an engineering setting. The Synthetic Biology. Synthetic biologists apply students learn while designing, or testing engineering principles and extend genetic designs of, engineered biological systems. engineering techniques to construct new In addition, this approach provides science genetic systems. The synthetic biology teachers with a means of exploring numerous approach provides teachers and students state and national technology standards that with a means to learn molecular biology, are hard to address in most science classes. Using synthetic biology to teach engineering The engineering approach taught here focuses on two important principles: abstraction, and standardization, and relies on numerous enabling technologies such as DNA synthesis. These principles and technologies provide biology teachers with a means to extend the teaching of molecular genetic techniques into real world, authentic applications. In the way that physics teachers can have students create functioning circuits and computer teachers can have students create 3-D animations, biology teachers can have students safely design, construct and analyze engineered biological systems. BioBuilder.org The BioBuilder curriculum This curriculum has been developed in conjunction with the BioBuilder.org website, which provides educational animations for students and teachers to explore the underpinnings of synthetic biology. Single page animations frame the topics and lab activities. All the material is modular and can be taught completely, in any order, or piecemeal, as individual exercises to supplement an existing program. Biology teachers can use these available materials to conduct engineering challenges with students. Students gain first-hand experience with the engineering paradigm: Design Build Test Since the engineering activities are performed they can be engineers. BioBuilder’s curriculum in the context of living systems, the students includes both classroom lessons and will have to understand the underlying science. laboratory activities. Biodesign and Bioethics Through synthetic biology, students can learn lessons can be carried out in any sized these concepts within an authentic context classroom and with many age groups. The of engineering challenges. These tools of laboratory investigations provide standard synthetic biology provide biology students protocols as well as modifications to meet with a means to be more than technicians; local situations and needs. What a Colorful World The iTune Device Picture This Examines the role of the Examines the role of parts, Three activities to explore cellular chassis in system such as promoters and the role of modeling in circuit performance. Students ribosome binding sites, in design. These activities transform different strains predicting the output of a include a downloadable of E. coli with DNA that genetic device. The students program to computationally turns the cells several measure β-galactosidase vary the parameters of a bright colors. Students then enzymatic activity as the genetic circuit, an exercise observe how different the device’s output, thereby to mimic a genetic circuit color intensity can be from looking through the lens of with electronic parts, and an strain to strain, despite being molecular genetics to predict opportunity to send a stencil encoded by the same DNA and then evaluate a device’s that will be turned into a sequence. behavior. bacterial photograph. Eau that Smell Golden Bread Compares two alternative Explores the science, engineering and bioethics of a yeast genetic designs. Both that’s genetically modified to make a vitamin-enriched food. programs should make the Lab activities include PCR, yeast transformation, codon cells smell like ripe bananas shuffling and statistical analysis of data. as the cells grow. Teacher manual BioBuilder.org What a Colorful World Lab Exploring the role of the cellular chassis context | check lists | lab protocol In this lab, bacterial transformation identical genetic programs in two different techniques will be used to introduce strains of E. coli. Sterile technique and some plasmid DNA into two cell types. solid-state microbial culture are the The engineering concept of chassis is biotechnology skills emphasized. explored by comparing the function of Teacher manual What a Colorful World Lab CONTEXT If you’re inclined to think like a scientist you’re excited by getting into the lab, finding that something new and unexpected has happened to the system you’re working on. This emergent behavior might make you wonder, “What explains the results I observe?” If you’re inclined to think like an engineer this behavior might make you think, “ugh” and then get to work defining the best way to optimize a system’s performance with hopes of avoiding unexpected behaviors like these. Both approaches have merit, and together the scientific and engineering approaches should lead to more reliable designs in the future and should minimize the number of surprising behaviors we see as we build new living systems. Build In this lab, the DNA programs that chassis. The DNA programs come generate purple or green pigments from a 2009 International Genetically have already been written and Engineered Machines - iGEM project assembled for you, but you will called, “E. chromi,” in which students complete the final building step by from the University of Cambridge inserting the DNA that encodes the designed and engineered E. coli to programs into a few different bacterial produce a spectrum of pigments. You will build several color-generating systems to explore how the chassis affects the output of a designed genetic program. Because the pigments are visible to the naked eye, you can easily decide whether the color outputs are different between chassis. Before detailing the experiment, though, we will provide a general discussion of chassis design and decisions, and we’ll walk through the E. chromi project to provide some context for your investigation. BioBuilder.org What a Colorful World Lab CONTEXT Introduction to chassis Just as a car manufacturer must take into account the entire car when designing an engine, synthetic biologists must consider the entire system they are building, including the cellular environment itself. And in the same way that there is a huge variety of cars on the road, cells vary dramatically in their size, shape, organelles, and basic metabolic functions. Consequently, choosing the best host cell, or chassis, for any engineered genetic program is an important step in the design process. How to engineer it? 1 - NEAREST NEIGHBOR, the “nearest wild-type organism” approach A chassis is identified from nature based on its ability to do something similar to the task a synthetic biologist has in mind for a new system. The work of some biofuel researchers illustrates well this approach. Because the bacterium Ralstonia eutropha naturally converts carbon dioxide into energy-storing polymers, engineers felt it was an attractive chassis to generate biofuels instead of the polymers they normally make. 2 - STANDARD CHASSIS, “blank canvas” approach A more generic chassis is chosen that either has a minimal number of natural components or is well understood and highly engineerable. It is essentially a blank canvas that is theoretically an ideal chassis for a variety of engineered systems with different desired outputs. For example, some research groups are using engineered E. coli to make biofuels. E. coli have no existing talents to recommend them for biofuel production. However, they are the closest organism that the field has to a standard bacterial chassis. Thus, the researchers see E. coli as an attractive platform for many purposes, including the conversion of carbon dioxide and electrical energy into isooctane. Teacher manual What a Colorful World Lab CONTEXT A little bit more about chassis NEAREST STANDARD NEIGHBOR CHASSIS When only minor changes are needed The standard-chassis approach is more in an existing organism to obtain the scalable than the nearest wild-type desired outcome, it might be relatively organism approach because it provides easy to use the nearest wild-type a generic starting point for designers. organism approach. An existing organism can be The hope for a “blank canvas” cell that unexpectedly complicated because all could be reliably programmed with organisms have their own metabolic any and every genetic circuit is still pathways and needs, any of which futuristic. Cells cannot yet be thought might interfere in surprising ways with of as a virtual machine for biology. the desired output. For now, a
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