Author: Shannon Henery, PhD

Our Northstar middle school team performed extremely well on February 4th in Portland against much tougher competition than in past years. The team video took 2nd place in the video competition, team member Aadi Dalia won a medal for being an Allstar scorer, and Team 1 only narrowly missed making it to the double elimination round. Team 2 won a round as a team of all first timers as well. In addition to the great experience had by all, we have a much better idea of how to better prepare for next year.

With just over 2 weeks until the BPA Regional Science Bowl competition, the Northstar team video has been submitted! This video gives a 90 second glimpse into the fun that is Science Bowl. Check it out!

The Peachjar flyer has gone out announcing the new 12 week course starting in January! The 12 week course will consist of a 1 1/2 hr class every week, and includes a BioWorks Lab T-Shirt! We will do several hands-on DNA experiments along the way. Don’t miss out!

We had a group of 10 fabulous middle school aged kids, eager to learn about DNA and how we look for mutations in it. After extracting DNA from our own cheek cells and making roughly a billion copies of part of the target gene of interest, we ran Gel Electrophoresis (shown above) on our samples and found that there were some homozygous Tasters of PTC (a bitter chemical in broccoli), some heterozygous Tasters, and some homozygous Non-Tasters! We finished up with a 20 minute quiz show style buzzer round to review what we learned. Judging by the amount of candy each student won in the buzzer round, everyone learned a lot!

The first workshop, scheduled for November 19th, has filled up! More will be scheduled soon. Stay tuned…

A miniPCR and blueGel system have been purchased for upcoming workshops! These devices are so small and portable that they have even been used IN SPACE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwok8eYXrDk

BioWorks Lab workshops are beginning at Archimedes School of Mathematics and Programming in downtown Redmond! November 19th will be the first workshop, from 1-3 PM. This workshop will be for middle school age students. A high school workshop can be added if there is immediate interest (email info@bioworkslab.org to request a workshop). The topic of the first workshop will be an introduction to DNA in biotech as well as intro to Science Bowl competitions for middle schoolers! Space is limited to 10 participants so register early!

BioWorks Lab is officially a 501(c)(3) nonprofit! Additional progress on the equipment front includes order of a Bento Lab (expected to arrive sometime in December), and a digital compound microscope is now up and running! The hope is to get several more Bento Lab units going forward, with the stretch goal of acquiring an illumina sequencer down the road too!

Check out the Bento Lab. This is going to transform access to DNA technology.

Continue reading “501(c)(3) status obtained and equipment update!”

The business of finding a location, obtaining nonprofit status, and other necessities is underway. Updates will be posted as progress is made! Anyone wishing to donate time, knowledge, or funds to help this lab come together faster in Redmond, WA is encouraged to contact info@bioworkslab.org  The Facebook page can be found at Facebook.com/bioworkslab. Follow BioWorksLab on Twitter for updates as well!