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News and Events
2025
February
Students for the MIT-HTGAA Ottawa Node please go to Ottawa Node for HTGAA Web Site for homework reviews.
MIT-HTGAA Course starts 
Ottawa Bio Science will be an official HTGAA node for the 2025 edition of MIT Media Lab of "How to Grow Almost Everything"
This is an amazing course that introduces the non-biologists to the inner mechanisms of life. And it's totally free!!
Registration for HTGAA 2025 might still be open Please submit your application via the Global HTGAA 2025 Student Application Form.
January
Fluorescent Cells: A Petri Dish Adventure Workshop at the library
Molecular Bio Open Source Software App
While molecular bio open source scripts are abundant there is no UI app for manipulating DNA etc.
A number of our members decided to develop an Open Source software called Open Bio. First scenario is to visualize and check primers for PCR and LAMP.
There is no commercial or Open Source software that does that. We added a 'hide non-essential ' feature that is unique to facilitate the understanding of processes.
At this point we have a working version that supports loading and displaying sequences and bio operations like anealing and elongation. All the 'fluff' sections have been compressed in only 3 bases and displayed in grey Here is a screenshot.
2024
December
Tested the newly designed and built water bath. Successful in keeping a 45 Celsius constant temperature for 2 continuous days.
Finalize testing of the accessible protocol using Agar-Agar and bouillon. Here is the resulted culture under low UV showing superfoldedGFP is expressed.
Design and build a water bath. OS waterbath github
Created video draft waterbath build video
Discuss with Rideau-Rockcliffe Community Resource and incubator13.ca partnership
Create several raw videos for HTGAA external community
Perform the pork identification protocols
Start Testing HTGAA Accessible protocols
November
Ottawa Bio Science meet at University of Ottawa STEM center
Publish final three pork identification protocols on protocols.io.
Solicited and received feedback from other DIY groups - Rachel Aronoff from Hackteria, Scott Pownall from Open Science Network Society and David Castillo from Glyxon labs.
Start videotape first raw cuts of HTGAA Accessible protocols
October
For LAMP assay prepare and publish the detailed protocol for pork identification protocol on protocols.io
Meet with Glyxon Bio to discuss partnership and opportunities for joint projects
Perform the meat prep protocol
Rick took pictures and will create a video
Reclone meeting and collaboration discussions with other labs
Continue to do course preparation and node handbook with HTGAA for 2025
Plan and test the next public workshop on DNA electrophoresis
September
DNA extraction workshop
Protocol. 
Included origami DNA and video https://mrpauller.weebly.com/blog/origami-dna
For LAMP assay prepare and publish the meat preparation protocol at protocols.io
Fab Lab Festival participation. Our booth was very busy and successful. We were filmed and interviewed. We will update the links once we obtain the material. Fab Fest
Reclone meeting
Hack613 meeting
Discuss a secondary lab location with Canadian innovation space and incubator13
Build a Cell seminars
Continue to do course preparation and node handbook with HTGAA for 2025
Includes create handbook for the nodes. Comment on the existing documents and participate in the many meetings
Test the tube rotator and iterate the design. All finished and working.
Document GitHub project and document some basic bacterial growth. Endurance test for 3 weeks passed. Full documentation at:
TubeRotator
August
Prepare and acquire regents for the LAMPY assay
Continue detailed work for creating a secondary more accessible lab.
Reclone meeting and participation
Design and build a tube rotator
Create GitHub project and start documenting.
June
Dry freezing in June
Discuss/assess simple dry freezing technique as per Jennifer's paper. Shall we attempt it? It requires a long list of reagents a fast freezing device and a strong vacuum pump to attempt sublimation.
Reclone meeting and participation
Advanced discussions with other organization about partnering. Start detailed work for creating a more accessible secondary lab.
May
Document the inoculating Robot
We need to meet and document the robot as the details are still fresh.
Here is the full current documentation: https://github.com/AdrianMolecule/inoculatingRobot
Petri dish inoculated with GFP using the Inoculating Robot. Picture taken after incubation under UV light.
We will use the lessons and elements from the openFlexure project adapted to our project. It could be used for reading plaque for the HTGAA collab project.
Start literature research and design of continuous directed evolution system to implement
One of our long term intentions could become possible due to robotics. Try to identify a system that can be implemented using our implementation of pyLabRobot server.
Collab on HTGAA collab group project
Planning and start design of experiments
Design GA primers session
GA is maybe the most useful tool in engineering today so understanding it is a great skill. Bring scissors to cut DNA. Seriously...
April
Initial test the Inoculating robot
We will design several patterns.
Reclone grant proposal meeting
Discuss the potential involvement
Design the primers for plant virus LAMP kit session
Reclone presentation. From Kits to DIY
March
Presentation and discuss HTGAA collab group project
We will participate in a phage therapy research project. While the general goal is stated we need to distill that in concrete details. Major risk is availability and affordability of reagents.
Continue discussions for partnering and creating a secondary lab more accessible.
Prepare testing for inoculating robot
Select and culture the dishes and liquid culture for testing the Inoculating Robot
Work on the design of kit for LAMP
Decide on the plasmid and order it.
Cell Free Lab
Test the cell free from Kate Atamala/ U of Minesotta. The dry ice was gone by the time we got the packet. Testing result was not conclusive.
