December 21, 2007

With 'Biobricks,' Students Snap Together a New Science

By BIJAL TRIVEDI

Austin L. Day, a senior at the University of California at Berkeley, holds up an IV bag filled with a brown-red liquid resembling bloody-mary mix. The unsavory concoction is Berkeley's entry in a genetic-engineering competition — a blood substitute called "Bactoblood," made from modified bacteria.

Spurred by the worldwide shortage of human blood for transfusions, the Berkeley team developed a synthetic version by tinkering with the DNA of a common bacterium, E. coli. The

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