LAB HARDWARE

Privilege for Few

For several Brazilian laboratories and researchers it is very difficult to afford good Lab equipment because they are very expensive. Moreover, when an acquired equipment breaks, it can not be quickly or easily repaired without the company's assistance. Lack of autonomy often yield a sense of inferiority that strongly feed and make us whirl around a vicious loop of dependence. Rather than be a mutual relationship between academy and companies, these last ones not only charge high prices for equipment repair, but they also delay delivering support.

Along with the iGEM project developed for the 2016 edition of the competition, we had to deal with limited access to essential equipment for molecular biology like centrifuges, electrophoresis systems and transilluminators. It was very difficult to plan our experiments in advance due to the restricted access to some laboratories, since most equipment at USP are responsibility of different professors and researchers.

Low Cost Laboratory Equipment (LCLE)

The Transilluminator "Tabajara"

A transilluminator and photodocumentation system! Tabajara is a fictional company, created by a brazilian comedy group whose mote is " Your problems are over!" They became famous for being incredibly creative and innovative. However, a crucial difference between us and them is that our product both exists and is useful in many contexts!

However, we could not find an optimal filter, both for allowing mostly the UV to reach our gel, and blocking the background light after the DNA fluorescence. We didn't characterize it thoroughly, but only cellphones with really good cameras and bands with high concentrations of DNA could be seen. A new design, with epi-illumination instead of transillumination might solve those issues, but again we did not have time to explore it thoroughly. Finally, even though some commercial light filters are suitable for the tasks, we are still looking for more affordable options, as it is important to us that this product is accessible for as many people as possible. Nevertheless, the fact that it worked at least in some situations it was per se a success!

Here you can download the Transilluminator Tabajara files

An Electrophoresis System with Chamber and Power Pack

We also produced a working electrophoresis system (without a creative name this time) and were able to run gels in it! We have to admit that we used a commercial power pack, but all the rest was home made. And you have already seen the results, as the gel in image 3 was produced and run with it.

We had two major situations with the system. The first one was with the Power Pack. The system overheated and, even though we are working on troubleshooting it, putting our prototypes here could put adventurous iGEMers in danger. The second one was due to the voltages applied in the chamber and the contact of the electrolytes with the metals in non-isolated nuts and bolts and a copper wire used for the anode, resulting in a quite colorful mix of Cu2+ and other ions. This was solved by isolating the bolts and using platinum wires (more expensive, unfortunately) in both poles.

Here you can download the Electrophoresis System files

The "Seletora" MiniCentrifuge

A small centrifuge for bench work, with a Harry Potter inspired name and code. In the manual, in the next section, you can check the full design and read more about it (including the 3D printed rotor that is missing in the video).

The “Seletora” was the most extensively tested equipment in the context of iGEM 2016 projecy and upgraded during the process. We did not have a Micro Centrifuge in our host lab, so we had to use the ones that other professors in the department gently allowed us to use. The workflow, with lots of MiniPreps, digestions, ligations, PCRs and electrophoresis running samples would have taken a lot more time without the help of the Seletora Centrifuge.

BUILD YOUR OWN CENTRIFUGE

Aligned with the principles of openness, I leave here the manual, with a step by step image guide in order to help you build your own centrifuge!

Zip files

Even though we were not able to produce such a detailed material for all our systems, here we provided the files for the 3D printing and laser cutting needed to produce them at your home town (or any place with a FabLab, at least)!

Here you can download the files related to 3D printing, laser cutting and the Arduino code for making your own Seletora Centrifuge!