MoBioLab - Home

Mobile BioLab for Schools (MoBioLab) is a School-University Partnership Initiative to create a repository of scientific experiments in biology, biochemistry, and biotechnology. MoBioLab is based on a portable, handheld platform which is built with ubiquitously available components. Student teams are invited to contribute to the repository by testing experiments of the repository and extending their documentation, and by designing and documenting new experiments.

The experiments are performed using a spectrophotometer to measure time courses of biochemical and biological processes such as binding, reactions, or growth. The equipment consists of three components:

  1. A 3D printable cuvette holder
  2. The cuvette holder is connected to a smartphone which provides the light source and the light sensor
  3. The time course data is read in and stored on the smartphone by an app.
Side view phone with cuvette holder
Side view phone with cuvette holder
Top view phone with cuvette holder and light on
Top view phone with cuvette holder and light on

The 3D print file and a description how to produce and assemble the cuvette holder, the measuring app, as well as a list of requirements for the used smartphone can be found in the repository.

Smartphone photometer
Side view phone with cuvette holder

Side view phone with cuvette holder

Side view phone with cuvette holder
Ultrospec 3100 pro
Top view phone with cuvette holder and light on

Top view phone with cuvette holder and light on

Top view phone with cuvette holder and light on

The experiments are designed for small teams of three students as part of in their upper secondary or post-secondary education (10th grade or higher).

Please contact us if you are interested in participating in the MoBioLab initiative, either by implementing one of the experiments in our repository or by contributing a new experiment.