Well guys, I've done a lot more research and have been talking (and asking copious questions) on the diybio mailing list(google groups). It looks like I have my work cut out for me, and I'm going to have to study a good deal, but the plans for the lab are starting to come together.
Budget wise, I'm looking at about a hundred dollars a month in financial resources. I'll post a work up on the money side in detail once more details are available to me, as I'm not sure what qualities of equipment I'm going to need, or what I'll be able to improvise. With that said, I should have a fully functioning neurobiology lab in a year on the outside. More on this later.
Right now the bulk of my time is spent catching up my knowledge of research methods to my theoretical understanding. I've decided there are a few main avenues I need to pursue in the short term.
One is general knowledge of neuroscience. My sources of information have primarily been books aimed at giving a practicing clinician background knowledge on the fine workings of the brain. This is because up until about a year ago I was planning on getting my M.D. in psychiatry and going into research from there. Now, I've obviously become absorbed in pure research. Because of this my knowledge of brain chemistry is quite advanced, but my electrophysiology and macro scale anatomy is quite lacking.
The next is a need to be able to understand complex biology protocols. I've done some basic labs in the little bit of college I've had so far but it wasn't at nearly the level that I need to be operating at.
Along with this is the need to get a grasp on the general research methods of biology and specifically those which apply to neuroscience. My focuses for right now are reading everything I can about advanced microscopy and the optics and electronic/physical principles behind them, electrical sensor arrays and the electrical engineering behind them and cell culturing and manipulation techniques such as microfluidics.
An interesting non-neuroscience development in that I am going to be proposing a diybio genetics demonstration to a high school science teacher co-worker of my mom. I heard in passing that the teacher was planning on doing a tissue collection on her students and sending it in to be sequenced and analyzed by the Human Genome Project. While this is a great and innovative idea, I thought it would also be cool for the kids to be able to tangibly see and manipulate DNA as well. To any biohacker this immediately screams a coarse strawberry DNA extraction. I've put together the materials list, protocol, and some interesting background information that can be presented during the demo in the hopes that she will at least use the material and, ideally, allow me to conduct the demo under her supervision. My meeting is set for tomorrow, and you can bet that I'll post more when I know more.
That's about it for this missive from the lab in potentia, so I'll leave you with a few more links, this time basic background and technique articles.
Principles of Microscopy, an article by a professor of cell biology and molecular genetics explaining the principles behind visible light, fluorescence, confocal, and phase contrast microscopy.
Basic Microfluidic Concepts, an article on the University of Washington faculty pages site about the basic concepts behind microfluidics, as well as some numeric analysis of those principles.
Bonus: The beginners Strawberry DNA Extraction, from the University of Utah. Not really a protocol so much as a recipe (there's even meat tenderizer!), it's a great way to show kids and your friends the wonders of science.
Quick comment to update anybody who might see this, the meeting went really well, and it looks like we're going to wind up doing a more in depth demo than I originally thought. We're looking at doing a cheek cell dna extraction and running it in an electrophoresis chamber.
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