Distance learning for biohackers

Online courses on genome modification have been opened for everyone

Oleg Lischuk, N+1

The French Center for Interdisciplinary Research, with the participation of other institutions, has launched free online courses in English on synthetic biology for everyone. The project was named Synthetic Biology One.

Online learning is a rapidly developing industry, especially in areas such as programming, foreign languages, economics and others. Synthetic biology, which deals with various modifications of living organisms, is traditionally considered a very complex and highly specialized discipline, the training of which is possible only in laboratory conditions. Nevertheless, genome modification has many similarities with code editing, and basic knowledge about it, according to the French, can be acquired during online training.

Synthetic Biology One includes three projects with a theoretical part, practical video instructions and questions to test the acquired knowledge. One of them introduces the principles of cultivation of microorganisms by the example of yogurt preparation, the second – with the modification of the genome of E. coli using plasmids (small circular DNA fragments), the third – with the results of gene expression, visible by the color change of bacterial culture. Also, users are offered an educational game Hero.Coli, in which they need to control E. coli and collect valuable plasmids to acquire new properties.

As the developers write, the online courses are based on the training program for the first year of the master's degree. Ideally, a user who has signed up for courses should have at least one year of university education in biology and one in mathematics, but this condition is not mandatory.

At this stage, the courses are intended only to satisfy the user's own interest in synthetic biology. Over time, it is planned to issue certificates of completion of the course.

Recently, practical biology, including molecular biology, has become more accessible to the general public. For example, the crowdfunding project Bento Lab offers everyone a portable set of equipment that allows you to perform DNA analysis at home.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  14.03.2017