Chasing Green - My Adventures in Genetic Engineering of Bacteria
Video
Additional Notes
I left this section as a TODO for a few months. At the time, I felt a bit let down that the project had ~ended without a clear win of an obvious visible green e.c. strain I could use for agar art. With the benefit of a few months break to give some perspective (I’m writing this now in July 2026) the project looks a lot nicer! I got to work through the stages of a genetic engineering workflow, re-writing little bits of the code of life! The end result isn’t perfect because, shocker, biology is complex… but still :) I’m very glad I got the chance to try this, and who knows, maybe at some point I’ll give it another crack.
References:
- My blog (has a few posts with more info on this under ‘bio’): https://johnowhitaker.dev/all.html
- Frog paper: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas…
- Various plasmid designs: https://github.com/johnowhitaker/BLY
- Extra paper on BBSs: “Structural and Functional Characterization of a Biliverdin-Binding Near-Infrared Fluorescent Protein From the Serpin Superfamily”
Errata: I’d written “ALA supplementation” down and said Alanine multiple times in the video - brain fart! Not a heme precursor. That would be Aminolevulinate.