A low-cost, open-source evolutionary bioreactor and its educational use.

Gopalakrishnan, Vishhvaan; Crozier, Dena; Card, Kyle J; Chick, Lacy D; Krishnan, Nikhil P; McClure, Erin; Pelesko, Julia; Williamson, Drew F K et al. · Elife · 2022

other · Level V

Where this comes from

Abstract

A morbidostat is a bioreactor that uses antibiotics to control the growth of bacteria, making it well-suited for studying the evolution of antibiotic resistance. However, morbidostats are often too expensive to be used in educational settings. Here we present a low-cost morbidostat called the EVolutionary biorEactor (EVE) that can be built by students with minimal engineering and programming experience. We describe how we validated EVE in a real classroom setting by evolving replicate <i>Escherichia coli</i> populations under chloramphenicol challenge, thereby enabling students to learn about bacterial growth and antibiotic resistance.

Medical subject headings