Dr Drew Endy refers to the students that participate in MIT’s annual iGem competition as “freeform teenage genetic poets”. In response to this, Dearbhaile Heaney’s Bedroom Biology for Teenagers is a guide to biological experimentation within the home using engineered bacteria. Chapters include inflammatory how-to topics including: “Having Your Poo and Eating It” – a guide to turning your bio-mass into bread; “Speeding Things Up” – simple ways to steal growth hormones from your siblings; and “Biomolecular Floresence, The Fish Tank and You” – how to turn your semen green. Heaney believes that we must continuously extend our diagnostic vocabulary to cater for
 the truly complex nature of human beings.

CV: Dearbhaile Heaney is a designer interested in our perception of matter and how it can reflect and inform our social and cultural status as humans. She is currently completing her Design Interactions Masters at the Royal College of Art.

Read "To form or multiply", an investigation into what design can contribute to synthetic biology, written by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg.