Colisweeper : an educational use

The colisweeper game-kit

Colisweeper is a perfect tool to teach basic molecular biology techniques in the lab. In a fun way students can learn about principles of synthetic biology, circuit design and mathematical modeling while getting to know sterile techniques, handling of BLS1 organisms, solution preparation, plasmid mapping and many things more. In this section we want to outline how such a lab course could be built up.
To play Colisweeper one should have a basic knowledge about working in a biological laboratory. Pipetting and sterile handling of the plates are necessary. But Colisweeper can also be used to teach various other techniques. Transformation of the Colisweeper strain with the four plasmids, a restriction digest for plasmid mapping, preparation of all solutions necessary and much more can be packed into such a course. Depending on the background knowledge of the students as well as the time and laboratory resources, it could be possible to place lecture sections about synthetic biology in general, basics of mathematical modeling and so on.

Figure 1: Our idea of a Colisweeper lab course kit.

Modularity

Through our global web-based platform, we extend the possibility of a player to participate in the design process of the Colisweeper circuit. As our circuit involves a sender-receiver module, different combinations of promoters and hydrolases can be chosen by the player. From a displayed chart of indexed sender modules and receiver modules, a certain combination will yield a specific output. Through a use-friendly modeling interface, a defined set of reactions systems are specified for a selected sender-receiver circuit. The feasibility of the circuit in terms of time scales, visible and compatible outputs could be checked. Parameters and the modularity of the system could be explored. This would add a large educational value completely in agreement with the "plug-and-play" idea of gamification.

Figure 2: Possible plug and play combinations.

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