I was asked to run a on-line practical session for the University of Cambridge’s Davidson Inventors Challenge in March. I think watching someone else run an experiment on-line in real-time would be dull as dishwater, so I politely declined.
But, it may be different if we could figure out a way for school pupils to remote control bioreactors. Cambridge are also quite excited about this idea.
It’s certainly possible to remotely access the Pioreactor interface but think we’d need to figure out some sort of web interface that didn’t require anything much more than a log-in for most schools to cope. It would be lovely if we could include a webcam feed as well as the Pioreactor interface.
Then with three peristaltics (or for dramatic effect one remotely actuated syringe & two peristaltics) plus CO2 sparging & electrolysis control, etc. each school could get a week to run an experiment. They send in their inoculum (or we collect it for them), then they do everything to control the experiment for a week.
That way we remove all perceived biohazard risks, hardware requirements, etc. and open up fermentation to a much wider group of prospective scientists.
Any suggestions how we could make the web-interface work?
I’ve asked about an NGROK iframe on the Pioreactor Forum although @CamDavidsonPilon 's on Paternity leave (Congratulations Cam) so I’ll pop this here too.
As well as a webcam showing the whole setup, it would be brilliant if we could add one looking inside the vial.
I see Cam already responded on the Pioreactor forum with documentation on remote access.
Does the Davidson Inventors Challenge have to be an online practical session, or could it also be done in person? I’m not sure if just having access to the Pioreactor interface, even with a webcam, is that useful or interesting. There are risks involved with controlling a bioreactor remotely where you may not be able to shut the experiments down when things go wrong. The UI setup/control is also a relatively small part of the overall setup and running of an experiment.
Part of the appeal of Pioreactors are that they’re much more affordable than traditional bioreactors - maybe even within a school budget? I see the students have to submit their project outlines at the beginning of December. Is there a way to suggest to a team that they could work on a microbial protein project?
Have you seen Sterling Baird’s thread on the Pioreactor forum?
He’s working on what he calls “self-driving labs” and has been trying to use a Pioreactor as part of a remote-accessible cloud lab. Maybe worth connecting with him to see how it’s going?
Yes, the risks of remote operation would need to be addressed. I’m looking into getting a fume cupboard, and would plan on bunding the area in case of overflow issues. A risk assessment may also identify opportunities for automatic shutdown, or perhaps determine that online access could only be safely granted when someone was in the room to monitor. In any case the risk to the students should be no more than playing an educational computer game.
I hope that seeing your culture grow could be almost as interesting online as in person but agree in-person is best. This would open up opportunities for schools to try before they buy as well as providing access to pupils at schools who would never afford a bioreactor. Which physical activities do you enjoy more than seeing the culture grow? If it’s media prep, or inoculum hunting, those are also things they could do at school & send us.
The pupils need to devise their own experiments, but we hope to share a YouTube video with them in December. The initial plan is to contrast my experience as a chemical engineer in the Water Sector, with AMYBO’s innovation to date. That may result in a team or two who can afford bioreactors to do something similar. They were a little resistant to the idea of our finding sponsorship to provide bioreactors, but that may change next year.
I guess I’m still not quite clear how practical or useful this will be. Someone would have to be in the room with the Pioreactor to help set up the experiment and start it running, and once it’s up and running I’m not sure how much they need to change it?
It may be worth trying out the existing remote access capability of Pioreactor (and just have a live stream of the Pioreactor itself in a separate window) with someone who doesn’t currently have access to one to see how useful it really is?
Call me a chemical engineer, but I think the most value can be derived from a Pioreactor after the experiment is up and running. You reach steady state then tweak a variable & see if it increases or decreases yield.
Someone would need to be in the room to add the inoculum to one vessel (or syringe if we can manage that for dramatic effect) and one or more sets of culture media. From there the remote students could control things like electrolysis, CO2 sparging, temperature, and if there were multiple culture media pumps either overall concentration (if one was water and the other culture media) or the proportion of different mesonutrients. There are so many variables they could play with. As long as they wait to reach turbidostat steady state between each individual parameter change, they may even manage publishable discoveries. Given enough time, they could actually optimise fermentation.
I’m not saying it wouldn’t be more engaging if they were to do this with their own Pioreactor, but that may be impossible for some.
I was thinking that we use Tailscale Funnel - that way we can hopefully have the security of Tailscale with the ease of access of a web app.