Project PowerHouse

Latest Update: lab space in san carlos approved! doing safety training 1/15/2025. we will master the current best practice methods as we invent an at-home, non-toxic solution.

Red blood cells, 1000x.

Cheek cell, 1000x.

  1. Build your own at-home Mitochondria Imaging Lab
  2. Mitocounter
  3. Materials
  4. -Microscope
  5. -Preparation & Dyes
  6. -Specimen
  7. Microscope Research
  8. Potential Dyes
  9. Cell Types
  10. Todo
  11. Papers
  12. -Optical
  13. -Confocal
  14. Mitochondria
  15. Electron microscope
  16. Labs
  17. Spaces
  18. Conferences
  19. Links
  20. Twitter Accounts to Follow
  21. Scientific Questions
  22. Broadband near-infrared spectroscopy
  23. Spectrophotometry
  24. V0
  25. Project History
  26. Thanks
  27. Phase 2
  28. Jobs

Build your own at-home Mitochondria Imaging Lab

I'm going to setup my own home lab for imaging mitochondria. I'm going to do it as cheaply and reproducibly as possible so anyone can copy the setup. The goal is to create the world's largest public domain database of mitochondria images. Follow me if interested!

Mitocounter

This script (mitocounter.py) can be used to take an image of stained mitochondria and count them.

Example input:

Example output:

Materials

Microscope

Preparation & Dyes

Specimen

Microscope Research

Are there cheap fluorescence microscopes?

Can we build our own fluorescence microscopes? We only need 1 range.

Likely going to need a scope with oil immersion

Beginners watch this (@micro_safari - microsafari.org)

Suppliers:

AmScope

Potential Dyes

Rhodamine 123

Thermofischer Scientific - 25mg for $139.65

bitium - 50mg for $116

Janus Green B

methylene blue

Cell Types

Cheek (buccal) epithelial cells

Todo

Papers

Optical

Light microscopy of mitochondria at the nanoscale

Confocal

A pipeline for multidimensional confocal analysis of mitochondrial morphology, function, and dynamics in pancreatic β-cells

Protocol for assessing real-time changes in mitochondrial morphology, fission and fusion events in live cells using confocal microscopy

Analysis of mitochondrial dynamics and functions using imaging approaches

Live cell microscopy of mitochondria-lysosome contact site formation and tethering dynamics

A simple indirect colorimetric assay for measuring mitochondrial energy metabolism based on uncoupling sensitivity

Mitochondrial Dynamics in the Regulation

of Nutrient Utilization and Energy Expenditure

Mitochondrial volume densities in the smokeless

tobacco-treated hamster cheek pouch epithelium

Mitochondria

~1 micron in diameter

Electron microscope

Labs

Picard Lab

Spaces

MBC - Dogpatch, San Francisco

Biocurious - Santa Clara

Circuit Launch - Oakland

Conferences

Symposium on Mitochondria at the School of Medicine, Westlake University

6th Annual Mitochondria Symposium

Links

Twitter Accounts to Follow

https://x.com/MitoPsychoBio

https://x.com/FlorentWaltz

https://x.com/MAG2ART

https://x.com/Mito_Therapy/status/1868212807965000114

https://x.com/chillinwithpfn1

Scientific Questions

Broadband near-infrared spectroscopy

Spectrophotometry

Can we rig up a spectrophotometer approach? Do we need imaging, or can we get by with just dye + color reading?

Nix Mini 3 for $89

V0

$89.99Swift Microscope $48.99Swift 1.3 Megapixel Digital Camera TBDCustom Dye

Project History

1/15/2025 - MBC visit/training

1/15/2025 - Published https://receipts.powerhouse.wiki

1/14/2025 - Purchased Powerhouse.wiki ($3.16)

1/09/2025 - First videos

1/09/2025 - MBC demo

12/27/2024 - First sp images

12/24/2024 - RBC and White blood cell images. (todo: figure out WBC separation)

12/23/2024 - Microscope arrived. First images.

12/19/2024 - Purchased AmScope 72 Pre-Cleaned Blank Microscope Slides and 100 22x22mm Square Cover Glass. ($11.99)

12/19/2024 - Purchased Swift 1.3 Megapixel Digital Camera for Microscopes, Eyepiece Mount, USB 2.0 Connection, Color Photography and Video, Windows and Mac Compatible ($48.99)

12/19/2024 - Purchased SWIFT Compound Monocular Microscope SW200DL ordered. ($89.99)

12/17/2024 - MBC tour

12/12/2024 - Funding secured! Thanks to the Warpcast community, we launched $MITO and raised over $2,000 to fund the PowerHouse Project.

12/12/2024 - Added mitocounter script.

12/12/2024 - Website launched

12/12/2024 - @Ayyy_Unit tweets name idea

12/12/2024 - Breck tweets idea

Thanks

Just a place to write down names of folks providing help/advice.

Phase 2

⁂

Clone this site:

git clone https://powerhouse.breckyunits.com/powerhouse.breckyunits.com.git

Jobs

Sales - BY & ?

Software, Data & Research - BY

Recruiting - BY & ?

Hardware - ?

AI - ?

Grants & Fundraising - SR & BY & ?

Organization - ?

Marketing & Branding - ?