吃藥就可拉出彩色大便查健康狀況

　　E.chromi是劍橋大學設計的一個基因工程項目，他們利用一些會分泌顏色的細菌，并叫這個插入大腸桿菌之中，這樣你就會拉出不同顏色大便，利用這個技術我們可以檢測自己的身體狀況，每一種顏色代表不同的疾病或者身體狀況。目前細菌可以產生紅色、黃色、綠色、藍色、棕色和紫色。每一種顏色都可以代表一種癥狀。

　　E. chromi is a collaboration between designers and scientists inthe new field of synthetic biology. In 2009, seven CambridgeUniversity undergraduates spent the summer genetically engineering bacteria to secrete a variety of coloured pigments, visible to the naked eye. They designed standardised sequences of DNA, known asBioBricks, and inserted them into E. coli bacteria。

　　Each BioBrick part contains genes selected from existing organisms spanning the living kingdoms, enabling the bacteria to produce a colour: red, yellow, green, blue, brown orviolet. By combining these with other BioBricks, bacteria could beprogrammed to do useful things, such as indicate whether drinkingwater is safe by turning red if they sense a toxin. E. chromi wonthe Grand Prize at the 2009 International Genetically EngineeredMachine Competition (iGEM)。

　　Designers Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg and James King worked with theteam to explore the potential of this new technology, while it wasbeing developed in the lab. They designed a timeline proposing waysthat a foundational technology such as E. chromi could develop over the next century. These scenarios include food additives, patentingissues, personalised medicine, terrorism and new types of weather.Not necessarily desirable, they explore the different agendas thatcould shape the use of E. chromi and in turn, our everyday lives.This collaboration has meant that E. chromi is a technology thathas been designed at both the genetic and the human scale, settinga precedent for future collaborations between designers andscientists。