Team:Aachen/PolicyPractices/Economics

From 2014.igem.org

OD/F Device

One of our greater visions we share with the synthetic biology community is that everyone interested in biological work should have access to basic laboratory equipment. With our OD/F Device, we offer a low-cost solution for community labs, biohackers and high schools.

Advantages and Disadvantes of our OD/F Device compared to commercial availiable devices

For an economic analysis, we deal with F Device and the OD Device separately. The reason for this is the bad comparability to commercial devices. Latter do not combine the measurument of fluorescence and OD while being in the same product class of small, portable devices. With our OD/F Device, we offer a solution to combine both measurement methods in one device. With the instructions provided by us it possible to either build an OD Device or an F Device or an OD/F Device. We are offering a high degree of flexibility by enabling the user to modify our device according to own ideas and wishes.

Both portability and low cost, however, are two out of several factors that we heavily place importance on. Commercially obtainable spectrophotometers like [http://www.opticsplanet.com/unico-model-s-1205-spectrophotometer-5-nm-bandpass.html UNICO S-1205], for example, cost $1.250 or more, and can measure optical density only. On top of that, they are heavy, hardly portable and therefore not easy to handle. Nonetheless, they are able to work with a broader range of wavelengths and show higher accuracy and precision. For measuring fluorescence, devices such as [http://www.moleculardevices.com/systems/microplate-readers/fluorescent-readers/gemini-xps plate readers] are available. Yet comparing a commercial device like this one with our F Device is really difficult because we could not find one that is both portable and able to measure at 480 nm.

Comparable to our developed device in the points measuring range and portability is the OD-meter [http://www.laboratory-equipment.com/laboratory-equipment/cell-density-meter.php CO 8000]. This device measures also the OD at 600 nm but still costs almost 920 $. Our OD/F Device can measure OD as well as fluorescence for less than 60 $ like the following chart is showing. Cost saving lies here round about 850 $. Money that could definetly be given some better utilizations like into other projects. One weakness of our device is the low reliability compared to commercial devices. This is because of the used low cost materials. Prices are given in $ and € for better accoutability and conversion.

All you have to do is to order the needed parts from the list above, invest some time and have technnical skills to construct our OD/F Device. It's still this aspect which could also have simultanious a positive learning effect for people in schools and universities and so on. Therefore, we present a solution for low budget institutions like schools, universities, community labs and the biohacking scene.

Possible application of our OD/F device

In our cooperation with the Kaiser-Karls-Gymnasium and with NEAnderLab one of our target groups gathered first experience using our OD/F Device. As result we received the answer of our question if the device is useable in daily practice with teenagers. And we got a positive feedback for this. Even young people are able to use and understand our device without any security risk like mentioned on our safty page.

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