How construct a LED Array?
The following information contains the steps that was done by the Unam Genomics Team of the iGEM 2010 in order to construct an improvised light dispositive to irradiate bioluminiscent cells.
Introduction
Synthetic Biology has been enabling changes in all bio-domains, one such being communication. Cellular communication has relied since time immemorial on chemical messengers to exchange information.
In the project of Unam Genomics Team at the iGEM 2010, their goal is to render the chemical barrier deprecated by using a non-chemical messenger: photons. These will transport information between cells that have been designed to sense and emit light, thus creating a photon-based inter-cellular communication system.
They decided to break down their devices into 3 sub-devices: Reception, Emission, and Transmission. One of the most important things in the project is how the cell receive the information and process it. The intensity of the answer is proportional to the level of the message, so is necessary to characterize the black magic box that occurs in the cell.
A simple aproach to reach this goal is know how many photons are needed to turn on the system and to find the level of the expression in the cell. We then, constructed a plate with variable light which have autonomus temporizer.
In order to allow you to test our receptors or, if you have a lot of free time in the lab, do the experiments; we report a do it yourself.
Requeriments
A LED is a a semiconductor light source used as indicator lamps in many devices, and are increasingly used for lighting. Small size, an incredibly emission, a good life time and do not increase significantly the temperature of the irradiaded object... They are perfect to the biology!!!.
Another good thing of the LEDs is the diversity of sizes, the 5mm fit perfectly to an ELISA black plate used to measure fluorescence, so you can use 2 plates one for the array the LED and the other with the fluorescent strains.
You may remember in that far away class of electricity that the light in a circuit pass trough all the devices and these generate resistance to the flux to electrons. By the law of Ohm, we need an efflux of electrons that can go trough all the LEDs without problems, so we require an energy transformer with high amperage to maintain all the LEDS with the same intensity.
Also you maybe want use a triplay perfored board to do the things more easier and a box and black paint to reduce the external noise caused the sun rays which cointain all the spectrum visible.
So:
What do you need
- Soldering kits
- 96 LEDs 5mm 3 volts of the color that you want
- Switches to turn off-on each pair of LEDS
- ELISA 96-well black plate
- Duct tape
- Triplay perfored board, 12X8 holes.
- 4 meters of copper wire
- An energy transformer (120 V ~ 3V) of at least 2 ampers.
- Patience :)
Step by step
Early stages
You might know how will be the circuit, the next diagram explain how will be all the conected circuit:
Steps:
1
More information:
- Bitacore of our team experience From 22/06 to 27/06
- The experiment and Technical issues
- Unam Genomics iGEM 2010 Wiki
