kwtaylor

Great question! One thing we want to experiment with is to see if there is an optimal way to get the plants to glow. For example now that we have more resources, we can ask questions like could you get brighter glowing on younger leaves or older leaves? Since our goals are to bring the backers and public along for the ride, hopefully you'll be able to follow the experiments as we work to answer these types of questions.

Howdy, The system we're working with takes an aldehyde, FMNH2, and the luciferase enzyme. These are the three 'levers' to focus on to try and get satisfactory glowing. One thing we are putting a lot of thought into is how to bring you (the backers and the public) along for the ride so you can see what the difficulties and challenges are. Kyle

One of the reasons for being open and transparent is to give people further away a chance to get involved and contribute in whatever way they can. Don't let distance from us stop you!

Fortunately, plant molecular biologists have been working with agrobacterium since the late-70's early 80's (we are humbly standing on the shoulders of giants here). A lot of disarmed T-DNA plasmids exist (just as there are plasmids for E. coli protein expression). While there are a couple of ways to get agro to take up T-DNA plasmids, we've been working with the cold-snap method - which gives us an excuse to play with dry ice. Yes, acetosyringone does help transformation but it doesn't seem you have to always add it externally when doing experiments.

Haha - Avatar certainly got me thinking! I must confess - in high school I tried putting GFP into african violets - it failed and knowing what I know now it should never have worked, but that helped inspire me to pursue a career in plant molecular biology. Part of why I joined this project was the chance to inspire others!