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From 2013.igem.org

OVERVIEW

Refinement of functional systems is a key aspect of engineering. Biological systems are not immune to this fact and must be continuously improved to function consistently, and reliably. Creating easy methods for tuning biological systems using light was the goal of this year's effort. Our team sought to improve on a previous light-regulated gene expression method, integrate the use of tablet device for testing, and create multiple functional biobrick constructs. In 2012, we developed an app that affords any researcher with access to an android device with a LED screen the ability to illuminate cells in a controlled manner for synthetic biology applications. We improved the functionality of the app by adding a mini petri dish setting and demonstrated the advantages of paralization by performing experiments in a 96 well plate format. This tablet application represents the first real life example of using a mobile device as synthetic biology instrument.