Integrated Human. Interview with María Peñil Cobo & Dr. Mehmet Berkmen (Memo)

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Erin Quinn
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1 Integrated Human Interview with María Peñil Cobo & Dr. Mehmet Berkmen (Memo)

2 Questions and answers Interviewer: How did you meet? And for how long have you been working with bacteria? María: Well, I m an artist and I had no scientific background. Memo saw my engravings hanging in a restaurant, he liked them, and he wanted to meet me. Memo thought, she might be a scientist or something, but I have nothing to do with science. I was just inspired in nature and I like cells, the brain and that kind of things. Memo always had this idea of making art with bacteria, so he was like, come to the lab, and I can show you around. NEB likes art, and there s art everywhere and I came there, I loved it and I started seeing bacteria, under the microscope and I was like, oh my god this is another level! He told me: I can teach you if you want and I said, okay let s do it. And you know, he taught me everything. I ve been working for 7 and a half years. Interviewer: María do you think it is difficult for artists to meet and start working with other kind of people as scientists, just as you two? María: Yes absolutely. I mean, that was all a coincidence, memo liked my art and he had bacterial art in his mind, I knew nothing about it. Memo: I was doing bacterial art in my lab but in my spare time, but I realised very quickly that it could take a more professional way. I don t have the time to do it, so I was looking for some collaborators and when I saw María s nature art on the wall, I knew this was the kind of person I was looking for. So, I kind of tricked her (laughs) I invited her to my company, I gave her my business card and to my surprise she came. At the second she saw what I was doing, she immediately fell in love with it. I needn t have to convince her very much. We were both very lucky to find each other. Interviewer: As you know, our project creates genetically modified bacteria so, have you ever worked with this kind of bacteria or you just use bacteria that you find in contaminated plates? Memo: We have basically two different bacteria, natural ones and recombinant ones. We prefer to use the natural ones because when we do public displays with natural bacteria, although the laws are not very clear (laws are not against natural bacteria because they are all around us, even on our bodies). But even with these natural ones, we make sure that those natural bacteria are not pathogenic. We try to stay away from recombinant bacteria for public display. Because if you put a plasmid inside a bacterium and it is ampicillin resistant, you are now in the GMO world and you could potentially get in trouble. But in the lab, these recombinant bacteria, their colours are stronger. Biologically, the biggest problem right now is preservation, so these colours fade over time. We seal the plates in epoxy an after a month to several years, they usually fade. And so, what we really need are colours that don t really fade. That s where your research will be very helpful for us. Interviewer: Talking about it, we have some problems when fixing the bacteria to the agar. We are using nail polish, but we realised that some colours, as the

3 fluorescent ones just fade away as soon as they touch the nail polish. On the other hand we have a blue chromoprotein that perfectly maintains its colour. So, we wanted to know what kind of things you use to fix the drawings to preserve them. María: You can leave them in the fridge and they last forever, but what we do is we use epoxy, I do a layer of epoxy, take the agar from the petri dish and put it on top, and then you leave it dry for an hour or so. I then spread another layer of epoxy. Usually, natural bacteria last more. Memo: We know that they are alive when sealed in epoxy, because they are sitting in a carbon source. We also think that epoxy is permeable. We know they are alive because we have seen movement. We saw a colony that in 6 months, it had moved to get to an air bubble in epoxy. So they can move. Contaminations like fungus appear after they have sealed. Maybe the top layer of the bacteria might get killed during the curing of epoxy, but the core of the colony might still survive. We think there are two processes going on: biological degradation, the bacteria are probably eating the chromophores, because they need the carbon. Some kind of bacterial cannibalism. The other thing is biophysical degradation, like epoxy might affect the degradation of the chromophore in some way. We have tried killing the bacteria with chloroform before fixing them, but it had minor effects. We are going to try to kill them under UV. Another scientist near here is using several types of acid to kill them. And some of the bacteria immediately change the colour as they touch the acid. Micropia, which is a bacterial museum in Amsterdam, they have worked on an epoxy sealing method. And they told us that it took them 10 years to develop this method. They are the only museum that does it and, of course, they don t want to share their secret recipe. So, these are our problems: preservation and stability. Our colour palette is almost 20 colours, and they come from different bacteria. There are also other aspects that affect as well, as the bacterial communication. How different types of bacteria communicate to each other and grow together in the same plate. Interviewer: Talking about all the kinds of bacteria you use; don t you have any kind of problem when growing them altogether because of their different growing conditions? María: Absolutely, I must play with the conditions very often. Bacillus grows so quick, azotobacter takes longer. Memo: What María does is working by layers, the slow growing bacteria come first. Then, after some time or days, I add the faster ones and so on. She has to be constantly playing with time and temperature. Sometimes to develop the colours, she must leave the whole art in the fridge for some days. Also, because she opens the petri dish so many times, we get contaminations, and when they appear, if María likes them, she plays around them. We add another layer of complexity.

4 Interviewer: In order to make the recombinant bacteria you use; what method are you using for creating them? We just use previously designed systems. We have a couple of strains from a Cambridge group, we also have chromogenic strains from IDT, we have a couple of our own with the OFP. You also have to remember that María volunteered her time. This is not a paid job, so she can only come when she has some spare time. Interviewer: So, this is your hobby? María: Yes, this is the only art I m doing right now because I have a daughter, she is two years old, but I come to the lab as soon as I can, but usually 2 or 3 times a week. Memo: When María had the baby, I thought I would lost her. I think she wouldn t have time to come, but even then, she worked even harder. Interviewer: We don t really know if our project will arrive to anywhere but well, after doing some calculations, Printeria won t cost more than 800 dollars, do you think you or other artists could be interested in buying it? Memo: Well, if you trust in what you are selling, you have to push it all the way to the end. Interviewer: we want to leave the project in a way that if we cannot finish it, maybe someone or the following igem Valencia teams could continue, so that Printeria could evolve. Memo: And yes, absolutely, we could be really interested in buying Printeria. It sounds great to put my DNA pieces and the machine assembles it and puts them inside a bacterium. It sounds very practical, very real. I think you should probably get a manuscript out of this, some publication, talking about your design, about how it works. People will start using it, and Printeria will evolve. I really encourage you to write a manuscript even if it doesn t totally work. Interviewer: Printeria allows us not just to create colours but also scents, mint smell, banana smell? Memo: Oh, we ve been also involved in that kind of projects! We tried to make e coli smell like banana by using the ATF gene and putting isoamyl alcohol. But there are two problems: you must add the substrate to the media. We want a standalone pathway, in order not to put any kind of substance in the media, but I could not find a standalone pathway. The second problem that I found is that smell, by nature, is volatile, so as soon as you open the petri dish you get a nice smell, but then it s gone. We need to make something more stable, less volatile and at a higher concentration. Those are the walls we head against. So, if you guys do anything on that line I would love to work with you. If you guys engineer a standalone pathway, I ll do something on that. I even contacted a scientist in California who had a mutant E coli that produced isoamyl alcohol and that s the substrate to banana. But he never responded.

5 Interviewer: Have you tried to mix colours? María: Yes, but it does some crazy stuff, it doesn t really work. I wish I could invest more time in this because I should be documenting all this stuff (laughs) but I don t have the time. Interviewer: I am a biotech not an artist, so do you both have any kind of technique to make our art? María: You should try and use glass beads spreading techniques, liquid medium and pipetting it Memo: María has been doing this for seven years and it seems so easy, but you see the progression of her art over these years. You need 1 or 2 years to completely be in control of this art. Currently we are very bored of two-dimension petri dishes and we are doing more three-dimensional work. We also do workshops with students and adults, we bring them bacteria and they play around. And when you see the products of people on their first day and you compare them to those that María does, well, the difference is obvious. María: Now I ve started working in 3D bacterial art, by using molds, I m doing brains and hearts, out of the petri dish. Interviewer: For finishing, any piece of advice for the Jamboree? Memo: If you can, bring the machine with you, so people can touch it. And if you could have a live performance where you plug it in and the drop moves, that will influence the judges a lot. Practice your oral presentation many times and also be aggressive with the poster judges. So, if you see a judge around you, near your poster, just grab them and say: look at our poster. There re too many posters and people will have no time to look them. Passion is not a problem but try not to be shy during your poster presentation. You should also REMARK in your presentation that you are a diverse team, so you all talk multiple different languages for Printeria to work. And you could do that without spending much time. You could have a slide showing everyone s face and everyone s job, showing who talks to who with arrows. It will be great. These are the people speaking different languages, with a single goal, Printeria. (standalone pathway and gas chromatography)

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