Interactive Biotechnology

Abstract

The advancement of biotechnology enables interactivity with living microorganisms, i.e., turning classic observational microscopy into an interactive experience. This new field of "interactive biotechnology" enables many media such as educational biology cloud labs, museum exhibits, or biotic video games. In this course we will give an overview of our recent approaches to interactive biology. We will then demonstrate a biotic video game that enables real time play with living cells. We will instruct participants how they can replicate (and modify) this setup, which consists of a DIY microscope containing additionally four LEDs controlled by a joystick to stimulate single celled phototactic organisms. We invite the community to develop games and other interactive applications on this platform, and to bring it to maker spaces and classrooms.