LTTA 7 – Biohacking Academy: Biohacking to outreach

The Learning Teaching, Training Activity 7 / Biohacking Academy: Biohacking to outreach will be a collaborative journey for artists, scientists and enthusiasts. The Hybrid Lab Network will visit the Waag Society of Art, Science and Technology, in Amsterdam during a week of the BioHack Academy.

There, we will learn about cell biology, synthetic biology and micro-biology. We explore the world of bio-engineering, gene-editing and CRISPR-cas9 in particular. With an interdisciplinary group of artists, scientist and ethicists, we can think about how creative practices can help expand our collective thinking and legislation about these topics. 

This LTTA will focus on reaching a different audience by working together in teams of different expertise on speculative stories in a design fiction exercise in order to explore possible futures in a world where genetic engineering is the norm. 

There will be lectures by Howard Bolland on synthetic biology as an artistic practice, Kas Houthuijs will give an introduction on genetic modification practices and Lucas Evers talks about how creative uses of GMO’s can push legislation. Furthermore, we will go into the lab to use the open-source DIY hardware tools of the Waag’s biolab to do genetic modification of E. coli bacteria with Green Fluorescent Proteins ourselves and extract the product of our experiments from these bacteria for future uses. 

The BioHack Academy is a 10-week biotechnology course for this course bio-designers, engineers, scientists, artists, homebrewers and hackers who want to grow their own sustainable biotech materials. The BHA promotes wider access to knowledge and tools outside institutional science and allows for a wider distribution of biotechnological skills. In the BioHack Academy the focus is on learning the basics of biotechnology, working with biomaterials and collaborate on building your own lab equipment. In addition to gathering new knowledge, the BioHack Academy is also about sharing knowledge. All lab equipment manufactured within the BioHack Academy and the recipes are open-source. This means that everyone is completely free to improve the design or recipe, adapt it according to their own preferences and continue experimenting.

PROGRAMME

28 MARCH 2022

10:00 Introduction of the week

10:30 Lecture: Creative GMOs, Lucas Evers

13:30 Lecture: Genetic Modification Basics, Kas Houthuijs

15:00 Workshop: growing GMO’s Pt1, Kas Houthuijs

29 MARCH 2022

10:00 Team Selection + assignment Frank Vloet

11:00 Design Fiction Assignment, Frank Vloet

13:30 Design Fiction Assignment, Frank Vloet

15:30 Workshop: growing GMO’s Pt2, Kas Houthuijs

30 MARCH 2022

10:00 Prototype Presentations Participant, groups

13:30 Guest Lecture: Synthetic Biology as an Artistic Practice, Howard Boland

15:30 Workshop: Protein Isolation Pt 1, Kas Houthuijs

31 MARCH 2022

10:00 Workshop: Protein Isolation Pt 2, Kas Houthuijs

1 ABRIL 2022

10:00 Workshop: Protein Isolation Pt 3, Kas Houthuijs

LTTA 6 – Biohacking Creative Thinking

What skills do researchers need other than scientific?

Nowadays, to be a successful scientist in the modern world, it is needed a deep knowledge of a discipline, mastery of the scientific method, the ability to think critically and solve problems creatively and collaboratively. Creativity is not just a talent, it is also a frame of mind, and creativity can be learnt and improved using particular techniques; is one of the soft skills and is supposed to help develop innovative solutions to problems. The Creativity concept will be discussed and questioned.  Creativity requires an openness to innovation and mental flexibility and should be trained.

Design thinking provides a natural bridge between the arts, sciences, and other subjects. The goal of the workshop is, also, to promote the application of Design Thinking to the research work as a useful method for innovation in science and science education.

There is also a need to train scientists and researchers to develop creative skills (culture, visual literacy, soft skills for communicating their research projects, etc.) as well as visual communication skills, organisation and information design (data, set data visualisation, information visualisation, data visualisation and infographics, visual narratives), etc.

The Workshop:

In this workshop, during 5 days at i3s, participants will attend a systematic interactive training course where they get to practice the mentioned skills with others so they can learn these skills quickly and with long-lasting results.

This Design Thinking Workshop and other creative methodologies will be used as a tool to promote creative thinking in scientists having Biohacking as the subject. In this framework, design thinking presents the knowledge in multidisciplinary strategies, practical methodologies, and development of tools for the research on, in and into science and Higher Education. The LTTA will revisit gene editing (in vivo, in vitro, and in silico) protocols experimented with previous HYBRID activities, in the attempt to successively trim them to expand their multidisciplinary and educational functions.

Besides i3s teachers and researchers, partner institutions in the HYBRID project (Aalto University and Waag) will provide inspirational expert lectures and presentations covering subjects such as Design Thinking, Storytelling and Data Visualization including artistic practices and conceptual questions related to the development of these fields.

Participants:

will range from teachers, and HE students, proposed by each HEI partner institution, to citizens (artists, science communicators, entrepreneurs, etc.), moved by inner motivation. This workshop is designed for different kinds of participants (engineers, scientists, artists, entrepreneurship).

Themes:

1. Revisiting Gene Editing protocols
2. Creative skills in practice; 
3. Design thinking
4. Data visualization 

Workshop Aims:

1. to train Scientists and science students to develop
2. creative skills (culture, visual literacy, soft skills for communicating their research projects, etc.)
3. visual communication skills, organization and information design (data, set data visualization, information visualization, data visualization and infographics, visual narratives), etc.
4. to train Arts and Humanities researchers and students to develop
5. lab skills (namely in molecular biology; microbiology and gene editing in vivo, in vitro, and in silico)
6. scientific thinking/method (hypothesis, experimental design, controlled setups, conclusions drawing)

Expected results:

1. At the end of this course students should be able to apply some creative skills in their practice (culture, visual literacy, soft skills for communication of their research projects, etc.) as well as visual communication, organizational, and information design strategies (illustration data set, information visualization, data visualization, and infographics, visual narratives, story telling), among others;
2. At the end of this course teaching staff and invited teachers should: both gain awareness that it is necessary to rethink the learning/teaching methods and pedagogical approaches, learning spaces, or/and the role of science educators/creative educators at higher education;
3. Hybrid Lab Network staff should collect information and materials to refine the multidisciplinary educational proposals (toolkit and course syllabus), as well as to tune ideas on best practices for transdisciplinary teaching.