Team:USP-Brazil/InterLab/DIY

DIY Interlab Measurements

The InterLab is the biggest reproducibility experiment of the world. However, not everyone can participate in it. In Brazil, we are lucky to be at one of the few hotspots with proper equiment and technical expertise to test all devices. But that does not mean that we would not try to make this better!

The following slidedeck shows two cheap ways of acessing fluorescence: using cheap, blue LED strips or even with blue light from a smartphone flash!. By painting a transparent tape with a common blue permanent marker it is possible to filter out the irrelevant light With this, it is possible for everyone to do relative comparisons among the InterLab constructs

Another approach which provides a bit more standardized results can be done with LED strips. These are inexpensive (around 10 american dollars) and widely available, both online and in physical stores. Combined with laser cut (or hand cut!) acrylic filters from the right colors, one can access fluorescence easily.

These measurements can even become quantitative using free, open source software such as ImageJ (or FIJI, which has a lot of plugins readily installed). The team from our university did a great job last year describing these approaches, and you can check it all on their wiki InterLab page!

References and Protocols