A splash of color in the lab...

I love color in the lab. It is such a satisfying feeling to know that the small quantity of liquid you just added to a tube really got in there! When isotopes began to be made with a touch of bright pink, it made my day :-)  But it really has been a journey.

I'm old enough to have actually extracted DNA from a cesium chloride column by sucking the thin pink band out of the middle of the tube!  Kits are for newbies. You aren't really a molecular biologist until you've stuck your own finger with a needle that just passed though cesium chloride and ethidium bromine-coated DNA. Ah, the good old days:

SM Carr & OM Griffiths.1987. Biochem Genet 25:385-390

Today's kids take for granted all kinds of color indicators. They've been spoiled thanks to the array of colorful proteins made possible by "borrowing" from jellyfish DNA:                 

 Aequorea victoria jellyfish. Image credit:Steven Haddock.  

As fun as they are, colors in science aren't just a visual guilty pleasure, they are a confirmation that something has worked.  Something has changed from its original, boring, non-colored state. That we have altered nature and made her our bitch.  So I am thrilled by this new development from a group at Stanford.                                                                                                                                                                              

 Bonnet, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, worked with graduate student Pakpoom Subsoontorn and assistant professor Drew Endy, PhD, to reapply natural enzymes adapted from bacteria to flip specific sequences of DNA back and forth at will. All three scientists work in the Department of Bioengineering, a joint effort of the School of Engineeringand the School of Medicine. 


In practical terms, they have devised the genetic equivalent of a binary digit — a “bit” in data parlance. “Essentially, if the DNA section points in one direction, it’s a zero. If it points the other way, it’s a one,” Subsoontorn explained.

Binary Code, e coli style:

Red or green bacteria. Depending on which way they swing...

The possibility of harnessing bacteria to encode binary data is exciting. The clever use of color by a bunch of guys is almost as newsworthy. But what I really want is a way to know when the enzyme I paid $200 for is really no longer active. Green for It's All Good. Red for Buy A New One (when the expiration date is still good but someone doesn't understand the purpose of an ice bucket. Or ice.). Think of the money that could be saved if you took the guess work out of restriction digests, ligase reactions and PCR! And haven't you had this silent conversation with yourself while standing at the open freezer door?:

"Hm. Expired. But is it really expired or is it a ploy by the Company to make us buy a new one? Ordering one will take 2 days... I don't want to come in the weekend... Fuck it. I'm using it. If it doesn't work, I'll blame the new student." 

      

You know you have. So let's get these technologies together and make bacteria that signal when enzymes no longer work!  And can we use this technology to bring a bit more style to the lab? Who needs blue/white selection when we could do a nice black and hot pink combo? How about a nice warm coral for transfected cells to contrast with the soft yellow of medium?  Everyone loves to label their own things, can we use bacteria to lay down personal biofilms? Prints are in this season, could we work on a nice floral pattern? A zebra print? How about a paisley? 

Color in the lab is great, I really do love it. But style? Style would be right up there with a fundable score on a first submission.