Let’s evaluate the potential of open source “bio hacking” in the OpenVillage project 
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hazem thank you for tagging me in this interesting topic you know how much I love mushrooms 
@unknown_author First of all I would like to introduce myself to you …
Matab nadim is my name and I am from Egypt and Co founder of @Konnbat which we are working on improve farming by new techniques and also to farm the desert area by hydroponics systems etc…
I am also a biotechnologist and I am really interested on fungus specially mushrooms , three years ago I was in Finland and I worked on a rare kind of mushrooms called truffles (black diamond) popular name for it , A lot of Species of truffles and our middle eastern countries do have the desert truffles which common in Egypt , Tunisia , morocco as well , this kind of mushrooms are a gift from god , we can not farm it years a go but now we can by mimicking the nature as they are grow by association with roots of some trees like oak , hazelnuts etc under ground , the prices vary from 2000 to 4000 Euro per kg . And this is due to the unique flavour , taste , nutritional vale and medical purpose .
I made a research on how we can get a bioactive compound from the truffles mycelium and work on enzymes especially as we can use it in industries and medical purposes .
like lipase , peroxidase , amylase etc . also i thought that we can use it as a biofilm to clean a dirty water
we can get from it anticancer anti inflammatory agent and antimicrobial compound .
if we can think together it could be a great business model if we can make a truffle farm and use it as a great source of protein (food) and also sell it and use the mycelium as a source for our research to get a compound that could help us to improve the community .
About the DNA bar coding , why you do not use sequencing or use a sample way to identification for your bacteria . I want to know more about this
Thank you in advance
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Again if we can talk about dyes a kind of mushroom i worked on it called chantarelle got a orange color when we putted the mycelium in different kind of carbon source medium it turn the colours on to brown an light orange and it also edible mushrooms that could be used as a food source also
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@zmorda is a chemical engineer and I guess also knows a lot about the textile industry in Tunisia.
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@alberto do you remember the story about the company that specialised in glazing for tile industry in Sassuolo? I feel maybe it’s relevant to this
As I discussed with @winnieponcelet once, it could be a suitable technology to detect what type of fungus and / or bacteria is causing rot on your fruits and vegetables. Means, is it still safe to eat or not. Great way to reduce food waste, or put another way round, to get a permanent free stream of food supply for OpenVillage Houses from whatever is thrown out by shops and farmers around.
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OK do you mean that you target genes that are responsible for spoils food by bar coding DNA ?
We can use real-time pcr as a tool for this
Yes, that’s what I mean. The technique to use has to be cheap enough to use by a small to medium organization and on a case-by-case basis. Imagine a community kitchen sorting through moldy apples they got for free from the market and selecting the ones that are still fine to eat (after cutting off the moldy part of course) because the type of mold is harmless for humans.
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We can also made this by small identification tool biochemical assay which could be more cheaper
Or using agar medium with special dyes that that indicate Species of bacteria
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There are many such companies. Which story do you have in mind?
A LAMP assay? Is low volume and low requirement of machinery.
Also for DNA, cell-free extract offers low cost and low-tech testing.
Wait, this is not about targeting genes that cause rot. It’s about identifying the species that is doing the rotting. Am I reading it correctly?
that one with the wierd building in sassuolo
A pressure cooker or autoclave can’t be missed either, as soon as you work with microorganisms and mycelium. Microwave is low cost replacement for some heating equipment.
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Yes. You read specific portions of DNA of the species that are in there and crosscheck the data with the huge database of known organisms.
Correct. Because (from my so-far limited understanding at least) some species of fungus and / or bacteria cause rotting that is dangerous to humans due to their side products (such as mycotoxins). It’s not guaranteed that there are toxins in dangerous levels even if you have a “dangerous” fungus on your food, as that depends on other factors such as growing conditions, species competition etc… But it’s a useful proxy to then throw that piece of food away.
And it’s (hopefully) much cheaper to qualitatively test for what species is involved than to quantitatively test for toxins. For example, a single lab test for ochratoxin A in coffee is about 100 EUR.
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Nice to meet you @MatabNadim ! I’m big into mushrooms and experimenting with them in our open biolab ReaGent in Belgium. A few people here have been thinking to bring a lab and start a small mushroom in the new OpenVillage.
So I guess we should totally continue with that plan, right?
One thing I’ve heard is the difficulty of mushroom spawn supply in North Africa. Do you have any experience?
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