About This Project

I want to lyophilize Agrobacterium with pCambia2300-RUBYGREEN for easy distribution. Many people are interested in plant genetic engineering, but it can be hard to verify the right protocols and have the right strains in place.

I want to make this easier by providing lyophilized Agrobacterium as a positive control for people modifying plants. Lyophilized Agrobacterium should be stable at room temperature nearly indefinitely, making shipping and storage easy.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

It can be hard to get positive controls for plant transformations, especially if you don't know the right people! Agrobacterium can be expensive. Storing those controls can also be difficult - most people working independently won't have access to a -80c freezer, and 4c stabs only last so long.

Lyophilized cells should be able to be stored at room temperature for years without degradation. By creating a huge batch of lyophilized cells and then validating them with sequencing, we can create high quality positive controls for people trying to get into engineering plants.

What is the significance of this project?

Let's make high quality positive controls available to everyone, in a way that is shelf-stable in the ultra-long-term.

What are the goals of the project?

The goal is to create a couple hundred or even thousand tubes of Agrobacterium with pCambia2300-RUBYGREEN, and distribute those tubes to people and institutions that could share them forward.

I'll start right away if I get the money!