BeerDEcoded

An immersion into biology, bioinformatics & sciences via beer and their yeasts

Purpose: Introduce biology and genomic science to the public and make pupils and citizens aware about DNA, sequencing technologies, bioinformatics, open science and their applications and their impact on their daily life

Process: 1-2 days continuous (or divided over several days) practical workshop on beer decoding

Hands-on workshop

Targets: pupils in high school (16 years old or older) and citizens with or without scientific background

Learning objectives: at the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:

Available pedagogical material

3 ways to run a workshop

Previous workshops

We already organized several BeerDEcoded workshops over the last year. You can read more about them by checking our events.

Why?

Beer is alive! It contains DNA that comes from its ingredients (hops, malts, yeast) and some hundred microbes. There are 1,000+ yeasts used for brewing and 200+ hop varieties, each one bearing a different DNA and contributing to differentiate its properties.

We can use the beer to sensibilize the public to molecular biology and genomic related research, DNA sequencing and data analysis and the challenges and possibilities that genomics brings to our society.

To bring the public to the contact of molecular biology, data-analysis, and open science, we organize workshops in which pupils, students and citizens extract, sequence and analyze the “DNA of beer”.

How?

This project was started by Hackuarium, an open Laboratory for DIY Biology, in Lausanne.

In Freiburg, we develop a prototype of the DNA extraction, sequencing, and analysis protocols using the Nanopore MinION, a portable real-time device for DNA sequencing, and Galaxy, an open source, web-based platform for computational biology and bioinformatics.

Some pictures

BeerDEcoded