I think synthetic biology is really cool, and I like playing around with recombinant DNA elements so I can see how well they work in my own hands. If they work OK, then I just let that knowledge stew in the back of my brain until I can eventually figure out a use for it. Reading this paper by Martin Fussenegger made me realize just how easy it is to make cultured cells express melanin. Here was my first foray in creating melanin in HEK cells by overexpressing tyrosinase/

Doesn’t quite work well enough to use as a general reporter (it’s really hard to tell in a cell monolayer, and only becomes noticeable as colonies of cells or in a pellet, like above), but still kind of fun to see. Let’s see if I find an eventual use for this in some future work.