Dynamically color-changing food

Since the e-coli bacteria expressing GFP had grown enough, we decided to make an attempt at purifying it. Since we lacked some of the lab equipment suitable for a proper protein purification process, we decided to give a try to an alternative method using egg yolk. In the end, we weren't successful in purifying the GFP in a reliable manner, so we didn't manage to get a food-safe solution of GFP we could later turn into, for example, a glowing gelatine cube. That didn't bother us too much, though, since by having access to a proper filter (common in any bioscience lab) we would have been able to successfuly purify the GFP. In the end, the non-purified version of the GFP worked exactly as we expected: looking white when not excited, and looking fluorescent green when excited with an invisible stream of UV light. Wouldn't it be great to 1) have the proper tool to purify it, 2) grow it in red and blue as well, and 3) in the end prepare a gelatine cube with the three kinds of protein in a way that it could glow red, green and blue? Wouldn't it actually be an edible LED light? ;)

Non-purified solution of GFP glowing when excited with UV light

Close up of the non-purified solution of GFP when glowing

Today me and Marc have inoculated the e-coli bacteria in order to cultivate it to multiply the quantity of GFP. We will soon attempt to purify the GFP by extracting it from the toxic e-coli bacteria.

Erlenmeyer with cultivated e-coli expressing GFP

The petri dish with e-coli bacteria is almost ready for us to inoculate it on an Erlenmeyer and cultivate it to increase the quantity of GFP expressed. We will do that tomorrow.

Petri dish with e-coli bacteria on it

The bacteria expressing the GFP seems to be growing nicely is now growing inside our DIY incubator. So far, it seems to be growing nicely - we plan on purifying a sample GFP by extracting it from the bacteria some day by the end of this week.

A part of our DIY biohack lab

Me and Marc have been working on growing GFP on e-coli bacteria that we'll later purify so that it becomes edible (and harmless for the human body) - the e-coli bacteria is toxic, so we need to kill it and get rid of it, extracting only the GFP.

Marc working with a DIY Sterile Hood

Me, Marc and Adrià prepared some magic cocktails at the TICdate Festival, as well as some gelified daiquiris. People loved it so much that we had to teach them how to do it!

CocktailLab! Probetas,reacciones químicas, gintonic sin alcohol bicromático en tiempo real @TICdate @ferranaltarriba pic.twitter.com/F9EVRWIVEV

— Wärks (@WarksContents) 9 d’abril de 2016

The magic cocktails and gelified daiquiris waiting to be consumed

Me, the mad scientist

People trying out the cocktails at the workshop

Together with Marc Fernandez and Adrià Altarriba, we were doing tests with a color changing gin and tonic using the PH reactive tea flower as a preparation for the performance we did the following day at the TICdate Festival. We found out that tonic is an acid and therefore it makes the whole thing change color to purple-rose. We then figured out that we could reverse this process by adding soda water, which contains sodium bicarbonate - an alcalyne that helps us get the blue color back. This is a great learning, since it allows us to perform the color change back and forth with two ingredients (lemon, soda water) that fit perfectly with a gin and tonic!

Marc Fernandez writing down the measures

Brewing the PH reactive tea

Today I did a first experiment with the blue peacock tea flower. It turns a liquid like water (or a spirit if you fancy a cocktail!) into blue. Then, if you add an acid like lime juice it changes color to purple (as the PH decreases). But if you then add baking soda (or any other edible base), the PH increases and the color changes back to blue.