A collaboration with Design Redefined, a design-focused event series co-hosted by MIT MAD, the MIT Museum, and Innovators for Purpose.

This genetic engineering activity was designed for local students to teach them how we imagine microbes might be engineered for creative applications in space travel.

Teams are given specific goals beneficial for space travel (for example, design a microbe that would help grow space suits). They then vote on which gene parts would be relevant to their goals (for example, genes for silk production or glow in the dark colors). Finally, they must correctly assemble these into a plasmid complete with relevant promoters, selection markers, origins of replication, and terminators.

The activity highlights both the basic science and creative design found in genetic engineering.

Special thanks to Leah Hughes and the rest of the Design Redefined team in making this work a reality