Bio hacking talk

I decided to go along to a non-timetable workshop about Bio hacking. The worksop was a two part session ran by Raph Kim, a very fascinating ex-biotechnology student. Raph was so passionate and enthusiastic about what he did, made the workshop more compelling, which was really encouraging as well as inspiring. Although Bio hacking is something I knew very little about and didn't relate much to my project, I wanted to learn something completely new and widen my knowledge of an area I had zero knowledge on in the first place.   

The first exercise we did was based around extracting the DNA of a Strawberry and collecting this to visually see this 'Bio hacking' taking place. I found myself very excited about the whole process and the fact we were doing it using common house-hold objects. We put on gloves to start and took two strawberries placed them in a sandwich bag. Then with our hands we mushed the strawberries down to a liquid form, gradually breaking down the bonds and particles within the fruit. We then got a plastic cup and poured the content of the bag into it. We were then asked to add a few cubes of ice into the cup along with the strawberry mush. The ice breaks down the DNA further, isolating the DNA bonds.  Then using a biological pipet, we measured out 100ml of 100% alcohol. Once measured we added this to the strawberry and ice mixture. While adding the alcohol you had to careful mix the mixture in a quick circling motion. The mixing of the solution was needed to make the DNA easier to subtract. 

We were then given these tiny test tubes, where we would contain our strawberry DNA.  Using a plastic stirrer, we fished into the cup and tried to obtain as much of the DNA. Its form was very stringy, a little difficult to pick up using the stirrer. I found a god technique to get as much DNA strings as possible, was too continue the circling motion with the stirrer already in the cup. This way it wrapped itself around the stirrer and meant I gained more.