(2012-01-25) Diy Garage Biology

If you’re curious about biology, you can join a newly formed organization called BioCurious in California’s Bay Area. BioCurious, started as an online community, recently opened a new BioTech Hacker Space and community lab where those interested can come together to learn and share ideas... If you live in New York City, you can join Gen Space, the city’s community biolab that opened doors in December 2010. According to their web page, “Genspace was founded by a group of science enthusiasts who come from different professions--artists, engineers, writers and biologists. Unlike traditional institutions, our diversity is our strength and the source of our innovation.” Wired Mag profiled the lab when they opened last year.

A similar article with more emphasis on home activity. In 2007, Freeman Dyson predicted that leadership in biotechnology would eventually shift away from large corporations like Monsanto to kitchen laboratories, becoming "small and domesticated rather than big and centralized."... AutoDesk has recently begun sponsoring college genetic-engineering competitions and is developing software to aid biologists in their goal of re-wiring the genes of bacteria so that they will make fuel or drugs... After paying a $325 license fee, Cathal Garvey won approval last July from Ireland's Environmental Protection Agency to create genetically modified microbes in his mother's home. His "Class 1" lab rating lets him work only with germs that pose "negligible risk" to the public or the environment... Using his computer, Garvey designed a circular ring of 3,200 DNA letters, which he paid a contract lab in Texas $1,300 to synthesize and mail to him. It's a miniature chromosome called a plasmid that the B. subtilis bacteria will absorb. To endow a germ with new traits (say, fluorescence, or the smell of rain on a sidewalk), just splice the needed DNA into the plasmid. Garvey calls his construct "Indie Biotech Backbone 1.0," and he plans to sell it to other Bio Hacker-s.

More recent coverage from the D I Ybio group.