144. Art Meets Agar: Karen Ingram Reimagines Biodesign

(00:00:00): Summer travel in the Hamptons.

(00:01:35): Sag Harbor’s Whaling History – The town’s past as a whaling hub using whale oil.

(00:02:31): From Bioeconomy to Petrochemicals – Petroleum discovery quickly ends whaling.

(00:03:59): The Basque Whalers – Early European whaling led by the Basques.

(00:04:54): Positive Whale News – Australia’s humpback whales are making a comeback.

(00:07:08): The Genetic Manual – Penn study finds 25% of young ICU patients have treatment-altering mutations.

(00:08:22): The Healthcare Gap – Why advanced health data isn’t used enough.

(00:11:08): The Wood Wide Web – Mapping underground mushroom networks that link ecosystems.

(00:14:11): Meet Karen Ingram.

(00:16:28): Karen’s Origin Story – Interest in tech and nature leads her to synthetic biology.

(00:17:58): Early Brooklyn Biotech – Genspace and starting bio-art projects.

(00:19:51): Biogenetic Blooms – Karen paints flowers in Petri dishes with engineered yeast.

(00:24:19): Teaching BioBuilder – Co-authoring a book for teens on synbio and ethics.

(00:28:13): Designing for Accessibility – Making biotech exciting and easy to understand.

(00:29:44): Fallacy Bingo – Creating a game mixing nightlife with logical fallacies.

(00:36:31): Collab Futures – Building collaborations between scientists and creatives.

(00:38:28): Gaming in Science – Using games for emotional, memorable science communication.