Open-sourcing DNA damage detection for Citizen Science

Bring along your toothbrush to gently collect your own cheek cells and assess baseline levels of DNA damage during this hands-on workshop. Bring a friend, or partner up with another participant, and you will each prepare slides of your own cheek cells, then swap off for scoring. Under the microscope you will count your cells and observe their nuclei. If a big piece of chromosome has broken off in your cell, occasional micronuclei can be found. Some micronuclei are entirely normal (maybe 5 in 1000), but too many (maybe 50 or more in 1000) might mean you should consider whether you are being exposed to genetic risk factors, or to environmental toxins such as lead or mercury.

This guest workshop is taught by our good friend and renowned biohacker Rachel Aronoff from Hackuarium in Switzerland! Rachel is an experienced molecular biologist and geneticist with active projects around a big picture concept of 'genomic integrity' currently in progress at Hackuarium. Learn about quantitative methods essential for informative experiments, better understand the statistical challenges for interpretation of results and potentially realize how choices made about environmental risks might influence health. Do It Together!

$10 workshop fee goes towards helping offset Rachel's travel expenses. Noone turned away for lack of funds, but please chip in if you can!

Limited to 12 participants - make sure to RSVP to reserve your seat!