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In early ‘2011, the Media and Design faculty in Genk participated in the exhibition Alter Nature, where works from around twenty international artists explored how humankind manipulates nature. We got to know what synthetic biology is and how much more manipulative ‘design’ can be in this field. We also learned that as media designer or artist one can imagine and visualize a future with synthetic biology, which makes it interesting to collaborate with scientists. When me, (media) designer and a (graphic) designer where asked by our design school (MAD Faculty) to join the iGEM competition – a competition between universities on the topic of synthetic biology – we took advantage of this unique opportunity. Between June and November 2011 we collaborated with bioengineers and biomedical science students. In iGEM, teams make or use existing biological parts to build biological systems and operate them in living cells(1). For instance, a student team could be designing a microbe that detects toxic chemicals and outputs a corresponding color.

In the first week we immediately got involved in the project, thinking about possible bacteria and their applications. As completely new in the field of synthetic biology, we looked at previous iGEM projects and saw examples of how bacteria were created that could function as biosensors. We really liked this idea and the potentials it held. Eventually though, we decided that E.D. Frosti was going to be our project, a bacteria that can induce or inhibit ice formation. The end product could for instance be used to prevent ice formation on roads in the winter.

Together with Stefan and with advice from our team members, we slowly started to comprehend the science behind the project and translated the mechanisms behind E.D. Frosti into a visual style. Our work went into a wiki, an animation, presentation and we came up with the idea to do a workshop with children, explaining them the basics of synthetic biology and letting them visualize a future with it. After we got through the regional Jamboree in Amsterdam, we started working on our final project, a 3d poster.

Our idea started with a report on the belgian news. They imagined Frosti’s ability to inhibit ice formation as a alternative to the application of salt on the roads. This showed how easily our project could be translated into real life applications. We knew it was important to highlight this positive point in our project and we decided to include illustrations into the poster that show these applications. The problem was that we were restricted to a certain size for our poster, which brought the important informative value of the poster in danger. We solved this by using a 3d technique, in which viewed, from the right angle, the poster shows the applications and from the left angle the information. Our poster shows two possible applications. An anti-freeze protein that protects farmer’s crops in the winter and a fictional instant-ice-machine, bringing synthetic biology in the households of people.

In the end we presented our poster in Boston at the M.I.T. and, although we didn’t won in the competition, we got alot of positive reactions. After Boston E.D. Frosti catched the attention of entrepreneurs and definitely has potential to be commercialized. More on our project can be seen here, and our adventure in Boston is documented on our blog.

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