Growing plants engineered for their field
Read more about the ongoing work of Will Carey and Adam Reineck from IDEO and Reid Williams from the Lim Lab at UCSF in this FastCompany article here.
Wendell Lim
Wendell Lim is a Professor in the Departments of Pharmacology and Biochemistry at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Lim received his AB in Chemistry at Harvard University, working with Jeremy Knowles; his PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with Robert Sauer; and completed postdoctoral research in Molecular Biophysics at Yale University, working with Frederic Richards. He is the recipient of awards from the Packard Foundation, Searle Foundation, Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the Protein Society. He is the Director of the Cell Propulsion Lab, an NIH Roadmap Nanomedicine Development Center, and Deputy Director of the NSF Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center. He is also a member of the National Cancer Institute Board of Scientific Counselors. Lim’s research focuses on cell signaling – understanding the molecular circuits that allow cells to communicate, detect signals, make decisions, and execute complex behaviors. He is a pioneer in the emerging field of Synthetic Biology, which attempts to utilize our understanding of biological mechanisms to engineer cells and biological systems with useful applications in diverse areas of ranging from medicine to agriculture to energy. He is a leading expert on how to rewire cells to control and modulate what types of decisions they make. He is interested in how the design process can be creatively applied in science.
limlab.ucsf.edu
Will Carey
Will Carey is a designer who focuses on combining interaction and industrial design to create provocative and inspiring experiences. He is particularly attentive to the relationship between people and technology, and the role of new innovations in shaping our behaviour both physically and digitally. He sees an important role for design in provoking thought and discussion, and this curiosity drives him to explore new scenarios in which it is possible to question the social and ethical implications of emerging technology. Will has worked internationally in London, Japan, Milan and San Francisco. He has exhibited in London, Milan, New York and Tokyo, and won internationally recognized design awards, including Design Week’s Future of Design, Wallpaper’s Best Debut Collection, and most recently, Blueprint’s Best Show, during 100% Design London. Will has a BA in Product Design from Central St Martin’s, London and an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art. Will now works at IDEO, Palo Alto and will be collaborating with Adam Reineck, a senior industrial designer at IDEO, on this project.
www.willcarey.co.uk
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"Build Life to Understand It" argue Lim and Elowitz
Biologists and engineers should work together: synthetic biology reveals how organisms develop and function, argue Michael Elowitz and Wendell A. Lim in Nature 468, December 2010.
"Although traditional disciplinary boundaries are dissolving, the cultural differences between scientists and engineers remain strong. For biologists, genetic modification is a tool to understand natural systems, not an end in itself. Thus, making biological systems 'engineerable' — a goal of engineers in the field of synthetic biology — can seem pointless. Many biologists wonder why engineers fail to appreciate the intricate, beautiful and sophisticated designs that occur naturally. Engineers are often equally perplexed by biologists. Why are they so obsessed about the details of one particular system? Why don't they appreciate the value of replacing a complex and idiosyncratic system with a simpler, more modular and more predictable alternative? These misunderstandings can make for fascinating conversations, but they can also prevent mutually beneficial synergies."
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cutting tec01 away from plasmid
Restriction enzymes cut DNA in the correct place
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Learning what can be done with polymerase, copying Tec 1 using PCR
e-coli
Many copies of Tec 1 have been successfully copied using PCR, both Adam and I were really impressed by the ability of polymerase to copy the exact part of the cell required for our experiment. It made us think that this machine like functions at such a small cellular level, could be used for other applications. What if we could take such principle sand apply them to the actual material and its behavior in various conditions. We imagined how this might affect packaging, the design of behavior in material object s and other opportunities that make up the physical environment of our everyday life’s.
Adam is preparing media to grow our e-coli bacteria, could this scene be inspiration for what the factories of tomorrow may look like? As designers we often stay one step removed from the factory floors that manufacture and assemble the consumer goods that we design. Taking a hands on approach to the creation of altered living cells is certainly one step ahead of what we are used to designing. Could this be the beginning of a new material future, are these the tools that may one day be in the hands of many or is this just confined to the specialist of the laboratory?
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'Choosing good problems is essential for being a good scientist. But what is a good problem, and how do you choose one? ....... Scientists are expected to be smart enough to figure it out on their own and through the observation of their teachers. This lack of explicit discussion leaves a vacuum that can lead to approaches such as choosing problems that can give results that merit publication in valued journals, resulting in a job and tenure.'
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Getting to know the Lim Lab
There is an abundance of clear liquid, colored plastic and tools for moving liquid between containers in the lab. The smell of yeast lingers and people move with purpose around the lab preparing and initiating experiments to study the cell signaling behaviors of cells.
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Industrial Design /
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Futures /
Industrial Design /
tangibles
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