Filmwasters

Which Board? => Main Forum => Topic started by: jharr on June 09, 2017, 09:43:41 PM

Title: Bacterial emulsion
Post by: jharr on June 09, 2017, 09:43:41 PM

No development necessary. Just project the image onto the emulsion and let the bacteria express the colors. The bacteria were engineered to detect RGB light and then a pigment gene is activated. E coli are about 2 micron long and about 0.25 micron in diameter so that’s good resolution!

This hits my film nerd and biochemist nerd buttons.

Title: Re: Bacterial emulsion
Post by: Bryan on June 09, 2017, 09:58:03 PM

Is it something you can do at home without getting the whole family sick?  I'm guessing it wouldn't hold the colors very long. 

Title: Re: Bacterial emulsion
Post by: Francois on June 09, 2017, 10:31:25 PM

Not bad... finally a good use for Escherichia coli.
And best of all, this one's not brown  :o

Title: Re: Bacterial emulsion
Post by: ManuelL on June 09, 2017, 10:41:09 PM

Nice! Reminds me a lot of my biochemistry lab times.

Transformig E. coli to express custom genes is not very difficult, although this one seems a bit more complex with the RGB trigger. Not something you should do at home in general. You do need a bit of equipment for this.

Title: Re: Bacterial emulsion
Post by: jharr on June 09, 2017, 10:56:16 PM

I haven't read the paper, but I'm going to guess the iso of this 'emulsion' is probably <0.1. So unless you have a real 'need' to make 'instant' ecoligrams, it's probably not worth the effort. Kind of a cool application of the technology though.

Title: Re: Bacterial emulsion
Post by: Indofunk on June 10, 2017, 12:25:35 AM

Quote from: Francois on June 09, 2017, 10:31:25 PM

Not bad... finally a good use for Escherichia coli.

You mean, other than keeping us alive?  ;D

Title: Re: Bacterial emulsion
Post by: Francois on June 10, 2017, 08:17:26 PM

or making us sick... depending on your point of view (and former favorite restaurant)....  ;D