Melaminometer Project as proof of DIY Bio

Project Proposal

Use of synthetic biology has been proposed by OpenWetWare and related individuals/labs/groups as a means for non-scientists to use biotechnology. I propose creation of a simple and much needed chemical detector as one possible method of testing the idea of "DIY Bio". This theoretical "Melaminometer" detector registers presence of both melamine and/or cyanuric acid; original proposal here:

Original Proposal

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	actually 'doing bio'
Date: 	Thu, 9 Oct 2008 06:26:17 -0700 (PDT)
From: 	JonathanCline <jncline@gmail.com>
To: 	DIYbio 

I would like to propose a real example regarding diy bio.

Currently in asia, as reported on HK news, there are 10,000 babies in
the hospital after being
poisoned with melamine from purposely-tainted milk products.  Note
that melamine has now
been found in M&M's, in oreo cookies, in cereal..  I dunno about you
guys, I like M&Ms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine#2008_Chinese_milk_scandal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal

It occurred to me this week as I was attempting to buy some cereal
over here in asia.. and
looking at the palettes of quaker oats "on discount", I'm not too
encouraged that all the
contaminated food is being, or will be, actually disposed of.

I would like a melamine detector so I could test the food in my fridge
and the food from the
store.  Some of the contaminated food will get "curiously" re-directed
to resellers as discount
stock and may be re-sold for years through local channels - the locals
need this detector too.

So sure would be nice to have a cheap melamine detector.  I'm not
talking about something fancy,
like taking a sample of food to send to a lab which reports the result
in 1 week or 1 day.  I'm
talking about something I can stir up in the kitchen for years to come
that turns red within
an hour for "don't eat this."

This should be a simple DIYBIO project, right?

I am encouraged by open source biology because open source has been
shown to have the
quickest response time for problems found in the field.  Simple
example:  When someone found
a major flaw in Intel Pentium chips, the Illegal Instruction errata,
and Intel admitted it was a
valid problem, it took the Linux community something less than a week
(if memory serves --
something like 3 days?) to come up with a runtime patch which scanned
all applications at
runtime for the security risk.  This was a very high tech solution to
a very threatening computer
security problem which "endangered" everyone who had an Intel
computer.  Whereas, Microsoft
took months to release a patch, and SUN microsystems I believe took
even longer to patch
their version of unix.  Open source took days, and commercial entities
took months (not even
willing to admit there was a problem).

Keeping all this in mind, how would I build melamine detecting
"yogurt" in my garage right
now?
I mean a solution which is cheap (less than $0.50 per use), stand-
alone, and usable
by an 8 year old, so that the non-bio savvy masses can test their own
oreo cookies before
dunking them into soy milk,  Shouldn't open source bio heads be able
to get a working device
validated in less than 3 months?  (BTW, if precursors etc to melamine
needs detecting, then
the device should do that as well.)


A simple problem.  At least from the applications angle.