Beakernight

Beakerhead celebrates the advances and collaboration of science and engineering, for one week, the city of Calgary turns into a “Giant Laboratory”. We collaborated with BGSA (Biological Graduate Student Association) to participate in our biggest ever outreach event this year, Calgary Beakerhead Festival of Art, Science and Engineering. We aided with another “Bacterial Art” event on a city wide scale! Participants painted with three strains of E coli, each expressing a different fluorescent protein. The petri dishes were then stored overnight in an incubator, and all of the wonderful art was displayed Saturday night at the Grand Finale, Beakernight. Before painting, we actively engaged the participants with two of our displays. A huge display of the world map was constructed using nearly half a thousand petri dishes and carefully placed LEDs blinking at the places malaria misdiagnosis is prevalent. A second display comprised of illustrations demonstrating the science behind fluorescence and its modern day uses. Together, both the displays helped us attract people into participating in “Bacterial Art” and learning about synthetic biology.

Figure 1: AITF (Alberta Innovates Technology Futures) logo painted using different colours determined using florescent genes in E. coli.

Figure 2: Bacterial art painted using different colours determined using flourecent genes in E. coli.

Figure 3: The beakernight astronaut.

Figure 4: Beakernight bacterial art showcase.

Figure 5: Local Calgarians painting using the genetically modified E. coli.

Figure 6: "For Science" painted using different colours, determined using flourecent genes, of E. coli, showcasing that words could also be written with the bacteria.

Figure 7: GeekStarter logo painted using different colours, determined using flourecent genes, of E. coli.

Figure 8: BGSA (Biological Graduate Student Association) leaders Iain and Sean.

Figure 9: University of Calgary iGEM team member Ainna Randhawa beside the visual fluorescence gene information posters.

Figure 10: University of Calgary iGEM team member Ainna Randhawa beside the petri dish map.