I. INTRO

The human gut microbiota is one of the most densely populated ecosystems of microorganisms on earth. With an estimated 100 trillion microorganisms, the gut is an extraordinarily complex system of microbe-microbe and microbe-host interactions. A growing body of research is beginning to elucidate the diverse impacts the gut microbiota plays in human health and development, from nutrition, to disease, and even cognition. Recently, with the success of fecal matter transplants (FMTs) to treat infectious disease, microbes are emerging as a unique therapeutic. Model systems to both prototype and study complex polymicrobial systems are a necessity for producing robust microbial communities that can be engineered at both the genetic level (subcellular) and population level (multicellular).

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II. COLONY skin and mouth

1. We took our skin and mouth microbiome and grow our colony to identify different type of microbiomes.

We placed our microbiomes on to streak LB plates by stamping or cotton swabbing.g and incubated the plates overnight at 37°C.

From the sample mouth and sample skin plates, I got similar looking microbiomes.

2. Colony identification

Later we incubated the plates overnight at 37°C and isolated one colony from each plate and re-streaked them on a new LB+agar plate the following day. After that we send them to Genewiz for 16s rrna sequencing.

According to Blast both of my mouth and skin has Staphylococcus Aureus.

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III. TAPE BASED MICROFLUIDIC DEVICE

1. Process

We used a knife to cut a rectangle piece of PDMS with the same size of laser-cut tape.

We also peel off one side of the tape and adhere the exposed side to the PDMS slab and made holes through the PDMS by punching the inlets and outlet of the lasercut tape using a biopsy puncher. Then we taped the top piece.

We then prepared three needles at inlets and outlets using yellow and purple ink.

Then we placed the devices under the microscope to see the micro-channel performance.

The ink was merged subtlety in our channel.

Orange tone ink sample from the outlet.

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IV. HQ

For four types of interventions in the gut microbiome, (i) probiotics; (ii) fecal matter transplant; (iii)… (iv), describe what are the advantages or disadvantages of each approach.

probiotics: Usage of probiotics can keep a balanced and healthy digestion. However it might also increase the possibilities of unpleasant digestive symptoms. In a lighter case, frequent usage of probiotics might cause constipation and increased thirst.

fecal matter transplant: FMT has been established as successful in clinical trials for the treatment of Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI). However, it is also widely proved that the FMT can cause many adverse effects like fever, blood infection and so on.

dietary fiber supplements: Dietary supplements can be super helpful for area with limited food supply, like during natural disaster or even in the space. However, it might also influence on human's eating habitats, digestions and even daily life cycle.

infant prebiotics: Dietary manipulation with milk formula and prebiotic formulations are widely suggested for infants, it is treated as "wellness supplements" for getting healthy body. However, it might cause obesity for kids who already got enough nutrition from breast milk.

One future application of engineering the gut microbiome is human augmentation. Because the microbiome has been shown to have an impact on so many aspects of human health and development, (i) propose a type of human augmentation (e.g., extended alertness for sustained periods of time, reduced stress) and (ii) describe how a microbial intervention might produce that augmentation.

Microbial Human Computer Interaction. As wearable computing become more and more ambient and attached to body, it is this idea of "machine vision" being on top of "human vision" that could potentially be incorporate with microbial intervention. For example, if we implement computer to microbial interface to detect human's bio-metric condition, we can release the wires, electronics on human body for wearable computing.

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