Hackuarium
Since the start of this pandemic
… the open public laboratory association, Hackuarium, has had extra challenges for sustainability and continuity. Bioart and biomusic are a strong group focus, but our latest exhibitions (for instance by biodesigner, Vanessa Lorenzo, in London, China, and South Africa) and concerts (by the group Living Instruments, also including Vanessa, usually on the ‘moss-o-phone’ ) seem far away in this current situation…
This collection of images is just to show that Hackuarium is still pushing forward for bioart, open science and participatory research by anyone.
Rachel Aronoff
Trained as a molecular microbiologist, Rachel Aronoff only learned about open participatory research and 'biohacking' in the last five years.
Nonetheless, as founder of AGiR! Action for Genomic integrity through Research! (already 7 years ago), she acts to provide information about and promote projects investigating various aspects of 'genomic integrity' - a phrase meant to include all the dynamic molecular genetic details of cells - for public health. Currently, two genomic integrity projects are running (to open-source classic tests of DNA damage detection) at the Swiss public laboratory association, Hackuarium, where she has been a member since 2015, on the board since 2017 and president since 2018. Getting this community lab sustainable in the context of the current pandemic, while hoping #CoronaDetective tests really fly (and not only for XPRIZE!), are a couple of her big current challenges.
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Composite image from our work towards automatic recognition of micronuclei as part of the genomic integrity projects to open source classic methods of DNA damage detection. Such masks have helped train artificial intelligence algorithms.
Composite image from our work towards automatic recognition of micronuclei as part of the genomic integrity projects to open source classic methods of DNA damage detection. Such masks have helped train artificial intelligence algorithms.
Bioluminescent culture of dinoflagellate marine plankton, Pyrocystis sp., one taken on the inverted brightfield microscope in the lab, allowing an interesting view of the chloroplasts in a cell.
Bioluminescent culture of dinoflagellate marine plankton, Pyrocystis sp., taken at home during the pandemic lockdown, with finger-tapping in the dark for 10sec (F3.5/ISO6400).
Dried-out old microbial plate found during the lab move to our coop space in Ecublens, CH.