Conference on Synthetic Biology

As part of our Human Practices, on June 14th 2014, we gave a presentation for students and teachers from Tecnológico de Monterrey, Colegio Lestonnac and other Middle School and High School level institutes. As students and teachers who are interested in Science were invited, their participation was very dynamic. There, we explained basic concepts of Synthetic Biology and Biotechnology to the audience.

Our main topic was Synthetic Biology and its present and future applications. But, in order to transmit our message clearly, we had to start from the basics; that is why, one of our contents (the first one to be presented), were the characteristics of living beings. In this point, we stated that a living being has complex and organized systems, have a metabolism, need to maintain homeostasis, can grow, can reproduce, respond to stimuli, and are adaptable.

We gave the definition of Synthetic Biology as the design and construction of biological parts, devices or systems, or the re-designing of existent natural biological systems in order for them to be useful, and we also explained the techniques for the creation of synthetic organisms, such as acceleration of heavy particles, electroporation or heat shock.  In order to complement the concepts, we presented some examples of synthetic organisms and their functions, such as water pollution-absorbing plants, trees that change their color in case of a chemical attack and goats that can produce spider web.

Afterwards, we explained our participation in the iGEM contest, described our project to the audience (who found it interesting and useful) and performed an experiment which consisted in extracting DNA from bananas to stimulate their scientific curiosity.