How To Genetically Modify Yogurt To Produce Prozac

By Christina Agapakis
(Click here for the original article)

Tuur van Balen gives a provocative how-to presentation at the Next Nature Power Show, showing how to use the Synthetic Biology Parts Registry to engineer yogurt bacteria to produce prozac:

Van Balen is a designer whose work explores the boundary between art and science in synthetic biology. From his website:

Tuur Van Balen (Belgium, 1981) uses design to explore the political implications of emerging technologies. Through designing and experimenting with new interactions, he constructs thought-provoking new realities. Both the process of creating these objects, interventions and narratives as the resulting physical presence aim to confuse, question and confront different publics with the possible (and impossible) roles of technologies in our everyday lives.

I couldn’t find BioBricks in the Parts Registry for the production of prozac, but you can learn more about engineering the yogurt bacteria Lactobacillus to produce new colors and flavors from the 2007 Edinburgh iGEM team and making your own incubator and other lab supplies from the 2010 ArtScience Bangalore iGEM team. More about Van Balen’s other projects can be found on his website, including Pigeon d’Or, which imagines using BioBricks that produce grease-digesting lipases to engineer bacteria that live in the pigeon digestive tract, turning this urban pest into a helpful city cleaning system.

While getting DNA into a (well-studied, culturable) bacterial cell might be easier than you think, the task of designing and optimizing a functional, useful, and safe gene system is a lot more complicated, providing both the excitement and challenge of synthetic biology. Work at the interface of design and synthetic biology can ask important questions about how new technologies are created, used, applied, and sold, helping us figure out what is good design.

(via Cathal Garvey, via Massively Networked)

Comments

[farmilyman]

01:21 AM on 02/17/2012

That's twisted. Exercise works better than Prozac anyway.

[wzjussayin]

10:07 PM on 02/16/2012

Gratitude, exercise and great sex do the same.

[Parthenokinesis]

04:36 PM on 02/16/2012

Van Balen's work is much better now that he has teamed back up with David Lee Roth!

[jgarma]

12:40 PM on 02/16/2012

That's weird as hell.

Forget the Prozac. If depressed (mild or moderate) or your mood needs elevating, consider taking the natural supplement SAMe.

I think of it as the "triple threat" as SAMe also helps joints and the liver.

RIch Carson, the founder of ProHealth, is an expert on SAMe and explains its benefits in this video on this post, "The “Miracle” Supplement for Depression, Arthritis and Liver Health": http://wp.me/pA04z-RT

There are other resources to consider to get to the bottom of understanding depression and improving the situation.

Dr. Andrew Weil has a new book on the topic. In the post, "Four Alternatives to Antidepressant Drugs", Dr. Weil describes that for mild to moderate depression, pharmaceutical antidepressants are no more effective than placebos, but there are effective things to do: http://wp.me/pA04z-PM

"A Little Depressed? 10 Actions That Help Me" also suggests some tips that might be useful:
http://wp.me/pA04z-Pz

Stay away from Prosac, if you can.

P.S. The resources cited are relevant for mild to moderate depression. Severe depression absolutely needs a doctor's intervention.

[uberconservative]

01:59 PM on 02/15/2012

Someone is in need of Prozac!

[pegreads]

11:41 AM on 02/15/2012

Say what? Huh? Other than having yogurt in the title, why is this on a food website?

[BluebirdofUnhappiness]

09:06 PM on 02/15/2012

Because the people who put this site together aren't the brightest bulbs on the block.