On Saturday, before I went into the lab to do tissue culture (see previous entry) I did some DIY biotech at home, using technology somewhat older than tissue culturing I baked bread using a commercially available bakers yeast. Yeast is one of the most common and undesirable contaminants in tissue culture, guaranteed to compete with the cells for the goodies in tissue culture medium it will lay havoc with the delicate cell culture ecology and destroy it. So it’s status is radically redefined between the spaces of my home kitchen and the university research lab, from essential organic componant to contaminant.

I was careful to not carry any into the tissue culture room with me on my hands or clothing however it made me very conscious of the presence of everyday airborne yeasts and as Janet later pointed out, the yeast incubator that is adjacent to her lab. There’s also a fruit fly lab next door where vast amounts of yeasty materials are cultured to as fly food. The tissue culture hood and the extended tissue culture room itself is an architecture of filtered air flows designed to keep airborne contaminants out.

I would like to culture the bread yeast and take a look at it and in doing so to explore the possibilities of third spaces, neither the domestic nor the research laboratory, where I can explore yeasts and cells cultures, for a moment suspending both of their defined framings. And perhaps to capture and cultivate some airborne yeasts. I’d like to tackle sourdough bread baking and the idea of making my own starter from yeasts in my environment appeals to the idea of local ecologies and the permeabilities we enact with organisms through our domestic practices. Perhaps I can make a wild sourdough starter from wild (?) laboratory yeasts. Janet has added beer making and compost making to the list of exhanges between domestic biotech and The Lab. She uses bokashi to break down in her kitchen to break down waste into garden nutriants.