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How to Grow (Almost) Anything

@howtogrowalmostanything

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Official IG for the @mitmedialab, Harvard, and global SynBio course, “How to Grow (Almost) Anything”! Faculty @davidsunkong @george.church

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This Fall, we are launching a new @mitmedialab course for the first time: “How to Biomanufacture (Almost) Anything (HTBAA)!”

Instructors:
@davidsunkong, @mitmedialab
@george.church, @harvardmed
Joseph Jacobson, @mitmedialab

In HTBAA, students will explore the frontiers of biomanufacturing, from microbial, mammalian, and cell-free systems, to automation technologies spanning microfluidics, desktop liquid handling robots, and cloud labs.

And, for the first time, HTBAA students will have access to the new @mitcloudlab for Learning!

Thanks to funding from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center and @massgovernor Maura Healey, we are establishing the @mitcloudlab for Learning!

Registered HTBAA students from MIT, Harvard, and Wellesley will have the opportunity to conduct hands-on work with the Cloud Lab, while global HTBAA students will be able to conduct experiments remotely via one of our HTGAA nodes.

Join us to explore the cutting-edge of robotics, AI, and biology!!

🔗 Applications are now open, apply via link in the bio!

📆 Deadline: September 11 at 11:59p PT

Apply today, and please share with students, educators, and communities who might be interested!

Poster design: @ronancdonovan taken in MIT Media Lab by @howtogrowalmostanything

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It was an honor to host Massachusetts Senator @edmarkey at the @mitmedialab earlier this summer!

It was a privilege to share with him our national and global education mission with @howtogrowalmostanything, and also our new MIT Cloud Lab for Learning, where we are advancing robotics, AI, and life sciences education for students throughout the Commonwealth.

I look forward to working with the Senator on advancing this important mission in the months and years ahead!

And, it was fun to (accidentally) help moonlight as his speech writer 🤪😆

Thanks for the video 🎥 @laurenramlan!
Cover photo: @jimbodays by @howtogrowalmostanything

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Another year of How to Grow Almost Anything, in the books! 🌱 🧬  
We just wrapped another round of HTGAA @howtogrowalmostanything with MIT Media Lab @mitmedialab @communitybiotech @davidsunkong and we did it mid-lab-move, which is a special kind of chaos we don’t recommend but definitely survived. 
We’ve had over 30+ graduates and their projects, with weeks of mycelium sculpting, microfluidics, cell-free systems, Gibson assemblies, CRISPR labs, cloud labs, Opentrons runs, and enough transformations and dodgy gel electrophoresis runs to lose count of. 
Want in? Join us for our next cohort in 2027, and keep your eyes peeled, because a new MIT course is brewing at Lifefabs soon 👀
  Once again a huge thanks to our incredible Lifefabs MIT HTGAA TA team, and the core MIT Team, none of this would happen without you: @digby.usher @inger.legue @w112233442 @ronancdonovan @shaniceotersen @matt.berkshire52 @vnnvshen @juandiegounda @lexalltheway @bea_meskita @georg.tremmel @parg_art by @howtogrowalmostanything

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Congratulations to all of the amazing HTGAA 2026 students for an epic set of final presentations! 🎉🧬🚀 We are so proud of our students from @mit, @harvard, @wellesleycollege, and all of our global students for sharing their fantastic and visionary work. 🌍✨

Our students presented for more than 16 hours (😱🤯) over two days, sharing visions at the frontiers of synthetic biology, from self-healing biomaterials and novel biosensors to computationally designed enzymes and therapeutics, to design projects exploring the future of space biotech and ice cream (😳🍨).

HTGAA would not be possible without its heartbeat, our phenomenal team of 120+ Teaching Assistants from around the world who have worked so hard all semester (and all year!) to support our students. ❤️ Similarly, deep gratitude to all of the node leaders at our fifteen global nodes—we couldn’t be more grateful for your leadership! 🌎 @lifefabs @designercells @chitownbio @genspacenyc @bugsslab @hartnell_k12steam @bioclubtokyo

To our world-class faculty: thank you for sharing your cutting-edge research and showing our students that anything is possible! 🔬✨

We extend deep appreciation for our HTGAA Industry Council. Without your generous support and gifts, HTGAA simply would not be possible. To our long-standing partners, @twist_bioscience, @ginkgobioworks, @waterscorp, @nuclera, @opentronslabworks, thank you for your continued, sustained partnership and support. 🙏

Stay tuned—we will be sharing student projects and stories in the weeks to come, and will be announcing a new course this fall (!!). 👀🔥 Join us!

Here’s to growing (almost) anything, (almost) anywhere! 🌱🌍 by @howtogrowalmostanything

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WE DID IT!!! Congratulations to all of the amazing @mit, @harvard, and @wellesleycollege students for successfully completing the @mitmedialab synthetic biology course @howtogrowalmostanything! 🧬

It was an intense but rewarding semester exploring the frontiers of synthetic biology, from reading, writing, and editing DNA, to using the latest AI models to design proteins, assembling genetic circuits with liquid handling robots, and prototyping projects with large-scale cloud laboratories. It was an epic semester!

The course culminated with final presentations from our in-person @mit, @harvard, and @wellesleycollege students, and also more than 13 hours of presentations from our global students 😱😳🤯!!!

Follow @howtogrowalmostanything to learn more about our students, their projects, and the larger HTGAA learning community!

#syntheticbiology #synbio #biodesign #howtogrowalmostanything #htgaa taken in MIT Media Lab by @howtogrowalmostanything

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OCCULT SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY! Just finished presenting my project “SALEM: Synthetic Animated Luminescent Engineered Microbes” to @howtogrowalmostanything as part of @bugsslab Node and @communitybiotech ! Thanks, everyone! 🙌🌀🧬🔥💯

1st slide/video is my seven Petri dish large-format animated agar art system for occult symbols based on engineered fluorescent protein fusion and quotes from my ancestors executed at the Salem Witch Trials, secretly coded into amino acids and reverse transcribed into DNA. 🔮🌀🧬✨

This was a magical time!!! by @howtogrowalmostanything

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The 2nd week of @howtogrowalmostanything featured a DNA Design and Manipulation lab! Students picked a protein of interest, generated a codon optimized DNA sequence which they prepared for synthesis via @twist_bioscience. In the wet lab, students used restrictions enzymes to digest lambda DNA into patterns to make DNA gel art. Thanks to all of the amazing HTGAA TAs for designing and executing the week’s homework and lab with our students! taken in MIT Media Lab by @howtogrowalmostanything

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For our @mitmedialab synthetic biology course @howtogrowalmostanything 2026 we are proud to collaborate with 15 nodes around the world where global students can take the course alongside our @mit, @harvard, and @wellesleycollege students!

We are excited and grateful to highlight in this post the following global nodes:

@lifefabs Institute in London, UK;
@designercells Lab in Yonsei, South Korea;
@bioclubtokyo in Tokyo, Japan;
@htgaa_latinamerica at Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Quito, Ecuador;
@bugsslab in Baltimore, Maryland, USA;
@william_and_mary in Williamburgs, Virginia, USA

⏰The deadline to apply for @howtogrowalmostanything 2026 has been extended to February 1 at 11:59p PT!

👉Apply today via the link in the bio.

📚Class begins on Tuesday, February 3 from 2-5p ET!

Special thanks to @tokimonsta and Esther Choi for the amazing first slide poster design! taken in MIT Media Lab by @howtogrowalmostanything

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We are excited to announce that the application for the 2026 edition of our @mitmedialab #SyntheticBiology course “How to Grow (Almost) Anything” is now open! We could not be more thrilled for this year’s #HTGAA.

In addition to our in-person @MIT and @Harvard students, we also open up the course to a global classroom of virtual listeners. Listeners can participate via one of our national or global HTGAA nodes located around the world. Each year we have grown our vibrant global community, and we are thrilled to have you join us!

You can submit an application via the link in the bio, where you can also find Nature Biotechnology and MIT News articles on our global learning model. We work as a global network on collaborative research projects, including one on phage therapy and artificial neural networks in cells. We will work on more global projects together this year!

Come grow (almost) anything with us!

MAS.885: How To Grow (Almost) Anything

Instructors:

*Dr. David Kong (@davidsunkong), Director, @communitybiotech (@mitmedialab)
*George Church (@george.church), Professor (Harvard Medical School)
*Joseph Jacobson, Professor (@mitmedialab)

In ‘How to Grow (Almost) Anything,’ experienced bio-enthusiasts and those new to the life sciences alike learn concepts and skills at the cutting edge of bioengineering and #synbio. Each week features a lecture from a global expert in their respective research domain and wet lab skills development, with topics including:

* Reading, Writing, & Editing DNA
* AI-powered #ProteinDesign
* BioProduction
* Cell-Free Systems
* Microbiome Science & Engineering
* Microfluidics & Frugal Science
*Cloud Labs (@ginkgobioworks ) and Lab Automation (@opentrons_)
* #BioDesign & Biofabrication
* Advanced Imaging Techniques
* …and more!

Our faculty have included global pioneers in their fields such as:

Professor Drew Endy (Stanford)
Professor Chris Mason (Cornell)
Professor Manu Prakash (Stanford)
Professor Jef Boeke (NYU)
Dr. Nina Tandon (@epiboneinc)
Dr. Reshma Shetty (@ginkgobioworks)
Dr. Emily LeProust (@twist_bioscience)
Dr. John Glass (J. Craig Venter Institute)
Dr. Megan Palmer (@arpahealth)
Suzanne Lee (@biofabricate)
…and more! taken in MIT Media Lab by @howtogrowalmostanything

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What if your clothes can sense pollution and show it? 👚🌁

Sharing a project I developed earlier this year before the year ends. Developed at the MIT Media Lab as part of @howtogrowalmostanything taught by @davidsunkong and @george.church , with invaluable guidance and support from the army of TAs especially @suvin.sundararajan and @ronancdonovan , this project explores synthetic biology as a material and artistic medium.

𝘚𝘺𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘚𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 explores the idea of embedding freeze dried, cell free genetic circuits into textiles as a form of bioart and environmental sensing. The proposed system would activate when exposed to signals like zinc or pH changes, producing a visible color response when rehydrated. Rather than a finished artifact, this work operates as a material and conceptual exploration into how biology might function as a shared, expressive interface with our environment.

It was my first time working in a wet lab and my first lab experience since ninth grade biology (which I struggled miserably), a challenging and rewarding journey learning synthetic biology through both hands on experimentation and theory. Feeling really grateful for this learning journey!

#bioart #syntheticbiology #speculativedesign #environmentalsensing #wearableart taken in MIT Media Lab by @howtogrowalmostanything

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✨🚀 HTGAA 2026 está por comenzar.
(For English, see below 👇🏼)

Nuestro nodo en Quito inicia su segundo año como nodo local de América Latina, hosted por el Laboratorio de Genética Humana & el Laboratorio de Ingeniería Genética y Biología Sintética – USFQ.

HTGAA reúne a una comunidad global para explorar, crear y experimentar en biología sintética, bioingeniería y biotecnología creativa. Si te interesa diseñar, construir y reimaginar lo posible desde la biología, este año trae nuevas oportunidades.

🔥 Próximamente: fechas de la sesión informativa y detalles de aplicación.
Atento a los anuncios del 2026.

⸻

✨ English Version

✨🚀 HTGAA 2026 is coming soon.
Our Quito node begins its second year as the Latin American local node, hosted by the Human Genetics Laboratory & the Genetic Engineering and Synthetic Biology Laboratory – USFQ.

HTGAA brings together a global community to explore, create, and experiment in synthetic biology, bioengineering, and creative biotech. If you’re ready to design and rethink what’s possible, this year opens new doors.

🔥 Coming soon: info session dates and application details.
Stay tuned for 2026.

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#HTGAA2026 #HTGAA #HTGAAQuito #SyntheticBiology #BiologíaSintética #Bioengineering #Biotech #BiotechLatam #USFQ #HumanGeneticsLab #SyntheticBiologyLab #GlobalBio #BioDesign #FutureBiotech #BioInnovation #STEMLatam #STEMEcuador #BiotechCommunity #ScienceMeetsDesign #howtogrowalmostanything taken in USFQ by @howtogrowalmostanything

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