DIYbio DIYbio was founded by Mackenzie Cowell and Jason Bobe.[1] DIYbio is a network[2] of individuals from around the globe that aims to help make biology a worthwhile pursuit for citizen scientists, biohackers, amateur biologists, and do-it-yourself biological engineers who value openness and safety.[3] Participants call themselves ‘biohackers’, not hackers in the sense of infiltrating protected places and stealing information, but hackers in the original sense of taking things apart and putting them back together in a new, better way.[4] These biohackers often pursue these interests outside of their jobs, companies or institutional labs. History[edit] In April 2009, the first conference with a DIYbio focus was held; CodeCon, produced by Len Sassaman and Bram Cohen, replaced 1/3 of its normal program with a special BioHack! Relation to other open source groups[edit] DIYbio members value open-source, meaning designs and projects are usually under copyleft licenses. Controversy[edit]
A weekend of biohacking at FutureLabCamp Nidhi Subbaraman, contributor Biologists, architects, artists and engineers gathered in a former bank in Brooklyn this weekend for New York City's first FutureLabCamp "biohackathon" - a hacking camp focused on biological design and gadgetry. (Image: Mac Cowell/FutureLabCamp) On Friday evening, on the seventh floor of the building - which normally hosts start-up design and architecture firms, a writers' collective and a community biology lab - desks and models were swept aside, tents were put up and sleeping bags rolled out. Teams got together to create biohacking projects using cheap electronics, open-source code and material drawn from large plastic tubs labelled with identifiers like "robot brains". "The point is to get [the project] done and make it work," says Mackenzie Cowell, co-organiser of FutureLabCamp. The frenzied coding, welding and plugging produced a microscope modified to control the movement of paramecia and two pocket polymerase chain reaction (PCR) prototypes.
Do It Yourself Biohacking Ever wanted to play with your own genome? When you read about the latest genetic engineering tools do your fingers itch with anticipation? Do you look around the library, the pub, or the community center searching for your fellow biohackers? Just to be clear on the concept: genetic engineering takes microscopic specimens and uses standard techniques to splice in desirable genetic traits. The future is self-replicating And the scientific community at large isn’t shying away from working with the DIYbio community. Mac Cowell pointed out this comic from the Emerging Technology Conference to highlight the ease in which synthetic biology can be performed. Self-replication is a big theme in the DIYbio community. And this powerful tool is available to you. With great power comes great… The DIYbio community is helping to open the world of synthetic biology to everyone. The visionaries at DIYbio know that it might, and they are trying to plan accordingly. COMING SOON: The interviews!