E.chromi是剑桥大学设计的一个基因工程项目，他们利用一些会分泌颜色的细菌，并叫这个插入大肠杆菌之中，这样你就会拉出不同颜色大便，利用这个技术我们可以检测自己的身体状况，每一种颜色代表不同的疾病或者身体状况。目前细菌可以产生红色、黄色、绿色、蓝色、棕色和紫色。每一种颜色都可以代表一种症状。
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。
