Garage Biology in Silicon Valley (2010) | Hacker News Reader

Garage Biology in Silicon Valley (2010)

synthesis.cc

16 pointsMCRed12 comments

> I continue to get push back from people who assert that "it is really too hard" to hack biology in a garage, or too expensive, or that garage labs just can't be up to snuff. This sort of dissent usually comes out of National Labs, Ivy League professors, or denizens of the beltway. All I can say to this is -- Doodz, you need to get out more.

Are there any examples of significant biological advances or discoveries from "garage biology" in the years since this article was written?

No, of course not. It's great to imagine that all science is accessible to everyone. It's a great democratizing concept. The trouble is that it's departed from reality.

It is so incredibly new though, not having major breakthroughs isn't too surprising. I don't think anyone is expecting it to replace research labs.

They seem to be saying that it's possible to do the same experiments as real labs, on a budget. Which might be true.

The reason garage labs produce less than real labs, is more likely due to selection effects. The majority of people passionate about biology probably try to become professional biologists. The people doing experiments in their garages are those who didn't make it, or people totally outside the field. And there's also fewer of them.

That's not to say if you took all the actual biologists and make them work in a garage, they wouldn't produce interesting things.

It's already an issue in academic labs that many studies are statistically underpowered. If academic labs blowing through millions each year are producing questionable results due to cost-cutting, then the limited budget of DIY labs is going to be a huge problem.

There are examples in the UK of a shed laboratory mis-identifying MRSA in everything and causing a national scare, costing many thousands of pounds in needless extra cleaning. This is detailed quite well in Ben Goldacre's Bad Science book.

There are a few blog posts about this: http://www.badscience.net/category/mrsa/

> Are there any examples of significant biological advances or discoveries from "garage biology" in the years since this article was written?

No, but I'd argue for a different reason than lack of resources.

I'd argue that it's simply not possible to "scratch an itch" in biology.

For mechanical and electrical engineering, there are projects that intersect with hobbies that people want to do and can do with the right equipment.

For biology, I'm not sure that I can really cough up anything interesting that intersects with many hobbies.

Craft brewing? Maybe? But that sure doesn't require much high tech equipment.

I'd love if anyone can point me to community site for DIY Bio / garage materials hacking.

I have an idea for a hobby project that involves building a robot to mix small amounts of (safe, non-biological) liquids... need to be able to dispense 0.1ml to 10ml range, but very precisely.

My current thinking is hooking up syringes with one way valves (one going to the supply, one going to the output) ... and a linear actuator or screw drive to move the plunger back and forth-- so on the pull stroke the syringe would fill from the reservoir and on the push stroke it would fill the output.

But I figure there might be an off the shelf solution for something like this that's hacker friendly.

Perhaps a peristaltic pump[1], with the rollers spaced appropriately to achieve the minimum incremental amount?

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peristaltic_pump

> I'd love if anyone can point me to community site for DIY Bio / garage materials hacking.

https://groups.google.com/group/diybio

To handle liquids on that volume range, biologists use micropipettes. These can be operated by a robot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ouPBX65kXU

Most large-scale projects already involve automated liquid handling such as Tecan EVOs and Beckman Coulter BioMeks - these have been around for years.

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