Assignment

3/21/2019

In this assignment, we will 1) Isolate a colony from your skin and mouth and identify them. 2) Make a tape based microfluidic device to confine bacteria and image them using a microscope. 3) Extra credit: make your own fluidic device, via tape, 3D printing, or another method, and upload to www.metafluidics.org.

Tape microfluidic device | Credit : Team BioFluid

Background of this Experiment (HTTGA)

http://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/S66.19/S66.19/assignments/microbiome.html

The human gut microbiota is one of the most densely populated ecosystems of microorganisms on earth. With an estimated 100 trillion microorganisms, the gut is an extraordinarily complex system of microbe-microbe and microbe-host interactions. A growing body of research is beginning to elucidate the diverse impacts the gut microbiota plays in human health and development, from nutrition, to disease, and even cognition. Recently, with the success of fecal matter transplants (FMTs) to treat infectious disease, microbes are emerging as a unique therapeutic. Model systems to both prototype and study complex polymicrobial systems are a necessity for producing robust microbial communities that can be engineered at both the genetic level (subcellular) and population level (multicellular).

Microorganisms that we collect from different parts of our body | Credit : Team BioFluid
The preparation of tape microfluidic device | Credit : Team BioFluid
The preparation of tape microfluidic device | Credit : Team BioFluid
tape microfluidic device under microscope | Credit : Team BioFluid
tape microfluidic device under microscope | Credit : Team BioFluid
tape microfluidic device under microscope | Credit : Team BioFluid
Printed microfluidic that our team developed and fabricated | Credit : Team BioFluid

Homework Questions

  • 1) For four types of interventions in the gut microbiome, (i) probiotics; (ii) fecal matter transplant; (iii) prebiotics; (iv) artificial culture, describe what are the advantages or disadvantages of each approach.
  • Ans :
    • (i) probiotics
      • PRO: easy to use and deploy
      • CON: probiotics could minimally penetrate and stay in the native microbiome
    • (ii) fecal matter transplant
      • PRO: high efficiency and require minimum technology
      • CON: hard to pin point the specific microbes that contribute to the effect/ social acceptance issue/ challenge in harvesting the feces from donors
    • (i) prebiotics
      • PRO: easy to use, create, and deploy CON: the user must have the healthy microbiome in order for it to work/ hard to study the effect.
      • CON: the user must have the healthy microbiome in order for it to work/ hard to study the effect.
    • (i) artificial pure culture
      • PRO: easy to use, create, and deploy/we know exactly the types of microorganisms that we put in the body
      • CON: it is hard to identify the microbes that work well together/ the added microbes could minimally penetrate and stay in the native microbiome
  • 2) One future application of engineering the gut microbiome is human augmentation. Because the microbiome has been shown to have an impact on so many aspects of human health and development, (i) propose a type of human augmentation (e.g., extended alertness for sustained periods of time, reduced stress) and (ii) describe how a microbial intervention might produce that augmentation.
  • Ans : It is possible that in the future, we could buy microbiome drink that allow us to have super power such as having the ability to be highly active, creative, and energetic through gut-brain interfaces.