Biotechnology Project Ideas

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All living things are made of cells and share the same basic cellular machinery. This simple fact is what underlies the "Biotechnology Revolution," which has given scientists the ability to create new transgenic crops that are resistant to insect pests, plant viruses, or herbicides. They have also been able to amplify tiny amounts of DNA in order to identify disease-causing bacteria or viruses, and even the identity of a criminal suspect. Explore these subjects even further with some of the following topics found in the Project Ideas below:

Information about an organism based on DNA analysis
Chemical reactions and pathways that are important in living organisms
Modern genetic engineering techniques (such as isolating and/or manipulating DNA)

Project Ideas Difficulty: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Easy (for beginners) Hard

All living things have DNA inside their cells. How do scientists extract the DNA from cells in order to study it? In this experiment you can make your own DNA extraction kit from household chemicals and use it to extract DNA from strawberries. Have any of your friends or family members ever had an allergic reaction to eggs? In this science project idea, you'll investigate how to modify recipes so that even egg-allergic friends and family members can enjoy them. How much iron is in your cereal? In this experiment, you will devise a way of testing foods for supplemental iron additives. Then you will use your design to test different breakfast cereals to see how much iron they contain. Which brand of cereal will have the most iron in it? How do scientists "copy" DNA? They use a process called the Polymerase Chain Reaction, or PCR. The key to making this process work is having a primer that will stick to the piece of DNA you want to copy, called a template. In this experiment you will test how the number of matches and mismatches in a primer will affect its ability to stick, or anneal, to the DNA template during PCR. Ever used a pair of molecular scissors? Restriction enzymes are molecular scissors that cut DNA into pieces. Find out which enzymes will cut, and where by making a restriction map. Then you can figure out what will happen if you change the sequence of the DNA. Will the same enzymes still cut the new DNA sequence? Do you like solving mysteries? In this experiment, you can find out how a DNA fingerprint can help you figure out whodunit. The answer might just be in the "sequence" of events! What are antibodies? How are they formed? How can they be used to identify different types of cells? This project is a practical introduction to the immune system. Why are some fruits not recommended for adding to gelatin? Here is a basic project for investigating enzymes that prevent gelatin from solidifying. It's an experiment with edible results! In this project, you'll learn how to isolate DNA from onion cells, separating it from other cellular components in a manner that still preserves its structure and sequence. In the end, you'll have enough DNA to see with the unaided eye, and you'll be able to spool it to demonstrate its strand-like structure. This is a basic project on the effect of enzymes on apple slices. Enzymes speed up chemical reactions by factors of at least a million. Now that's acceleration! This project investigates some of the factors that affect how fast enzymatic reactions occur. When biologists want to separate different pieces of DNA, RNA, or proteins they use a technique called gel electrophoresis. In this science project you'll build a gel electrophoresis chamber and use it to discover how many components are in different colors of food coloring dye. Is it possible to manipulate bacteria to become protein production factories? Can diabetics control blood glucose with insulin produced by bacteria? How cool would it be to take advantage of these microorganism's sophisticated makeup, short doubling times and cheap growth media to mass produce medically and commercially useful proteins? All of these are possible with a few simple genetic manipulations. By the end of this project you would know the basic foundation on which many biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies operate. Do you like reading detective stories or watching crime shows on TV? This advanced project idea in the area of forensic science might be right for you.

Additional Project Ideas

Note: The following project ideas are abbreviated, without notes to start your background research or a procedure for how to do the experiment. You can identify abbreviated project ideas by the asterisk at the end of the title. If you want a project idea with full instructions, please pick one without an asterisk.

Many proteins act as catalysts which speed up or regulate a biochemical reaction. The kinetics of an enzyme can be investigated by measuring the reactants and products of the reaction over time. Research the enzymatic reaction of a protein and investigate its kinetics. Measure the production of hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) by... Some proteins are soluble in aqueous solutions and some are not. Insoluble proteins can be a problem because the proteins can form large aggregates in solution which are difficult to purify, crystallize, and use in experiments. Compare the amino acid sequence and 3-D structures of some soluble and insoluble proteins (Berman, 2000). Is the... Proteins are the work horse of a biological system, performing all of the biochemical functions necessary to maintain cellular metabolism, architecture and growth. Different tissues are made up of certain cell types that each have a unique population of proteins that make up the cellular environment. Because of this, different cell types have a... What is cloning and how is it used in the biotechnology industry? How are plasmids constructed for use in a bacterial expression system? You can investigate bacterial expression with the pGLO Bacterial Transformation Kit (Catalog #166-0003EDU) from the Bio-Rad Biotechnology Explorer Program (see the Science Buddies project, ... Have your favorite foods been genetically modified? Genetically modified (GM) foods do not require labeling in the USA, and foods with less than 5% content from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can be labeled "GMO free." In Europe and Asia, GM foods require labeling only if they contain more than 1% GM content. You can investigate whether your... In order to study individual biochemical compounds like proteins, DNA, or RNA, biochemists need to know how to purify these components from a complex mixture. This is especially important for biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, which sell purified biochemicals as reagents or drugs to consumers. Do an experiment to purify DNA, RNA, or... How a biological system functions is a consequence of the 3-D structures of biological macromolecules like proteins and protein complexes. Proteins can be categorized into different protein families based upon sequence, structure, and function. Typically, proteins in the same family have similar biochemical functions. You can investigate the... Are you interested in the technical and ethical aspects of genetic screening, forensic science, and DNA fingerprinting? Scientists use different forms of a gene, called alleles, to differentiate between two fingerprints. One such sequence used in human DNA fingerprinting is the Alu repeat (a 300 base pair repetitive sequence of DNA) on... Some sequences of RNA can catalyze biochemical reactions, much like protein enzymes. These catalytic RNA sequences are called ribozymes. The function of a ribozyme depends upon the primary sequence of the RNA which folds into a 3-D structure. How do different ribozyme sequences fold? You can search for ribozyme sequences using Entrez BLAST...

Resources

Sources for Additional Project Ideas

Berman, H.M., et. al., 2000. "The Protein Data Bank," Nucleic Acids Research, 28 pp. 235-242 (2000). [accessed 3/25/06] http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/Welcome.do.
Bio-Rad, 2006. "Biotechnology Explorer Program," Bio-Rad Laboratories [accessed 3/25/06] http://www.explorer.bio-rad.com/.
NCBI, 2006. "Entrez PubMed," National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) [accessed 3/25/06] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db.
PDB, 2006. "Structural Genomics Information Portal," The Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics Protein Data Bank (RCSB PDB) [accessed 3/25/06] http://sg.pdb.org/.
Zuker, M., 2003. "Mfold web server for nucleic acid folding and hybridization prediction," Nucleic Acids Res. 31 (13), 3406-15.
Zuker, M., 2006. "MFOLD," Institute Pasteur, France. [accessed 3/25/06] http://bioweb.pasteur.fr/seqanal/interfaces/mfold-simple.html.

General Terms and Concepts for Background Research in Biotechnology

As everyone knows, DNA is the abbreviation for "deoxyribonucleic acid," the sturdy stuff in the shape of the double helix that encodes the "blueprint" of every organism. A good place to start for learning more about DNA is the Dolan DNA Learning Center website, at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Their site has many excellent materials; be sure to check out "DNA from the Beginning": http://www.dnaftb.org/dnaftb/.

Dolan DNA Learning Center home page: http://www.dnalc.org/home.html.
Recombinant DNA is DNA that has been artificially created by combining genetic material from two or more sources. This link provides an introduction on how recombinant DNA is made and some of the uses for it: http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/R/RecombinantDNA.html.
Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) Sometimes called "molecular photocopying," this is the process used to amplify tiny amounts of DNA, producing accurate copies in sufficient amounts for identification by sequencing. The automated amplification process relies on a DNA-synthesizing enzyme that can work at elevated temperatures (Taq polymerase), derived from the bacterium Thermus aquaticus, which was discovered in the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park. The following link has a good introduction to the PCR method, as well as a bibliography for further research: http://opa.faseb.org/pdf/The%20Polymerase%20Chain%20Reaction.pdf . This link has some interesting information on Thermus aquaticus: http://www.bact.wisc.edu/Bact303/b27.
Genome/DNA sequencing is the process of "reading" the order of the DNA nucleotides (deoxy-adenosine, -cytosine, -guanosine and -thymidine—the building blocks of DNA). The Genome Sequencing page from the Department of Energy's Human Genome Project is a good place to start: http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/faq/seqfacts.shtml.
Transgenic crops Here is a good place to start for information on transgenic crops: what they are, how they are made, where they are planted, as well as a discussion of some of the risks and concerns associated with them: http://www.colostate.edu/programs/lifesciences/TransgenicCrops/.

Materials and Equipment

Science Projects in the area of Biotechnology often require the use of specialized equipment. It may be neccessary to develop a reationship with a mentor or coach who will give you access to the equipment neccessary to run gels, incubations, purifications, or any other specialized equipment that your project may require. Here is a list of suppliers who offer reagents and kits for this type of research:

Biotechnology Project Ideas

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Biology + Technology = Amazing Innovations