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<TITLE>Re: [Noisebridge-discuss] Another DIYbio thread!</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>Hi Christie,<BR>
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I think there is a number of differences between DIYbio and the interest group work that is going on:<BR>
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1. As you mentioned, DIYbio SF does exist independently of NB, although “operate” may be too strong a word given it’s fairly informal current organization. It’s formation was not out of NB, but as a SF Bay chapter of a wider DIYbio quasi-organization. Some prior NB members who were interested in bio got involved with this SF DIYbio chapter and suggested NB as a location for activities, basically introducing the other members to NB. NB then seemed to become the de-facto location for activities for a subset of the DIYbio group, though there are members who are not involved at the 83C space so “colocated” would not be an accurate description either. This relationship was always very vague for me, and honestly I think this vagueness is a cause of many of the problems these two groups are experiencing right now.<BR>
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2. DIYbio SF is more geographically distributed than I imagine the bulk of your membership base is. We have people from the south bay, peninsula, north bay, and Sacramento. There is really no concentration in SF. This impacts how often people can meet. This situation is not ideal, but a result of the relatively few people into DIYbio in the bay area right now.<BR>
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3. DIYbio is a very new concept that is still being defined (it’s been only 6 months since I first heard the term used, and I was involved in bio for years). The term itself is fairly broad (bird watching could be called DIY biology suppose), but many people are more specifically interested in the Synthetic Biology subset. Within this subset it is still undefined and unclear how things will turn out. My observation is that what many of the “DIY” people are trying to do is re-create the work that takes place in university and corporate labs in a way that is cheaper, safer, and more accessible, so that people can hack biology in their garage in a way similar to the early computer industry. If and how this would happen are still open questions, and there are a lot of unknowns. For example, do you have to use some of the same dangerous chemicals that are regularly used in the bio lab, or could we create cheaper, faster, and safer methods? We don’t know the answers to these questions yet. People have been working on hacking cyborgs and working on machine learning for much longer than the DIYbio concept has been established, and for all of these reasons I think you won’t see as many tangibles “come out of it” as you will from your interest groups at present. The first real contributions are likely to be a refinement of methods and tools that make the field of Synthetic Biology more accessible to DIYbio hackers, thus allowing more people to enter the field.<BR>
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I think that the space issue may be more fundamental than you’re currently thinking. This is just my two cents, but I don’t think you’ll see a lot of bio folks rushing to join NB at $80/month if they’re not getting access to space and equipment conducive to their interests out of it. There are some folks in the SF DIYbio group that are not that interested in NB due to this, and I think this currently prevents the SF DIYbio group from “coming fully under the Noisebridge umbrella” as you put it. It is for this reason that I suggested exploring space issues at this time as well as other operating issues. There’s certainly more to discuss than just space, but we need to figure out what the possibilities are.<BR>
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The main advantage I see for DIYbio in working with NB is in your organizational structure and culture. I’m not just saying this to flatter you, I really mean it. You have essentially created a fairly open space where people can come in and use shared equipment and work on a projects in a way that your space gets maintained, things don’t get stolen, work proceeds safely, and you’ve dealt with legal concerns like insurance. I think that a bio hackerspace would definitely magnify the challenges further, as you are introducing very real biological, chemical, and environmental risks, and many of these risks are not obvious (unlike a saw blade for example) and require knowledge to even recognize the risk yet alone handle them properly. Someone like me may have the technical knowledge of how to do this, but that is a far cry from establishing a relatively open space used by many who *actually*<B> </B>pay attention to these issues. I realize NB doesn’t have the solution to all of these issues (I noticed you’re still working on soda purchases :) ), but I think you are further than we are.<BR>
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I think that at least a part of the cross-pollination that Tito was referring to revolves around hardware. Tito for example has been working on a project to create a better, cheaper gel-box + power supply/transilluminator combo which would make bio work more accessible. This is essentially a hardware project and a lot of the folks at NB would have a lot of expertise to contribute to a project like this if they were interested in working on bio hardware. This is probably one of the simpler (though most important) examples, and future projects are likely to be even more sophisticated. I imagine this could be a reciprocal benefit though it would really depend on what projects you were working on.<BR>
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A question I have though is what if anything NB would be looking to get out of this. How much do you want bio work to take place at NB? Are you mainly offering your space as a favor, do you think this is something cool and would like to be exposed to it, are you actively wanting to create a bio hacker space at NB and are looking for collaborators to do it, or something else? Some understanding of this would be helpful.<BR>
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-Josh<BR>
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On 3/30/09 8:18 PM, "Christie Dudley" <<a href="longobord@gmail.com">longobord@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>It's good to hear from you.� Although I must confess this email baffles me.� I'm really confused as to what the cross-polination is that you're referring to.� I think a lot of folks would agree that a great deal of our frustration with this whole thing is the lack of dialog between the bio folks and the membership of Noisebridge.� Although space is a very serious issue right now, that isn't central to the problem, and your assumption that it is only seems to illustrate how far apart we are on this.<BR>
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I'm sure you would have understood this if you'd kept up with the discussions going on in various places.� Yes, we're a wordy bunch (as evidinced by today's flurry of activity.)� If you're willing to work together in a coordinated fashion I genuinely believe we can work something out space- and safety- wise.� In addition to sharing space, we need to share the administrative overhead that comes with "getting along together" and work everything out in through the consensus process that's part of our founding principles.<BR>
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I'm sure you can understand that the last thing we want is to see our resources: space, money and energy poured into a black hole that nothing comes out of.� To date, that's all we've experienced.� We have a number of "interest groups" such as cyborg/sensebridge, OpenEEG and Machine learning that all act as subgroups from the main group.� DIY bio is unique in that it seems to be operating indepenently but colocated in Noisebridge, with occasional announcements to this list that something's happening.� <BR>
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I see a lot of potential here for shared information as well as shared resources, but I'm not sure folks with the DIY bio are willing to do what it would take - come fully under the Noisebridge umbrella - to make us work and live well together.� If you think that can happen, I think we really can get something good going.<BR>
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Christie<BR>
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On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 7:15 PM, Tito Jankowski <<a href="titojankowski@gmail.com">titojankowski@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<BR>
</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>Hi everyone,<BR>
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I'm also thankful -- Noisebridge has been most excellent to the DIYbio group. I've attended all of the DIYbio meetings held at NB and I feel that the direction of DIYbio is influenced from our time there.<BR>
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Sure, if we got serious we could sequester ourselves in some commercial space elsewhere in the Bay. But that lack of cross pollination *exactly* what's wrong with biotech -- and that's what DIYbio is fighting against. The evolution and exchange that happens at Noisebridge is very much in the spirit of DIYbio -- and I'm wondering how to preserve this. How can we democratize biotech in a safe, productive way?<BR>
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1. One way to do this is by being physically close to other hackers. Josh makes a good point -- what, loosely, would be involved in securing space next to Noisebridge for DIYbio?<BR>
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2. Another option is to find out own place -- and get help with setting up our leadership, management, and culture. Maybe start with that "how to start a hackerspace" pdf I saw floating around.<BR>
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I look forward to working with you all, and learning more about the blood and sweat that you put down, and hopefully sharing trick or two about biotech with you!<BR>
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Tito<BR>
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On Mar 30, 2009, at 3:29 PM, Josh Perfetto wrote:<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'> Hello all at NB,<BR>
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I helped the DIYbio group with the experiment over the weekend, and would like to provide some information on the current situation & thoughts on future relations.<BR>
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The experiment which was begun over the weekend is essentially the “hello world” of synthetic biology: transforming a plasmid containing the GFP gene into E. Coli, so that the bacteria will fluoresce under UV light. �It is very basic and many of the materials used in this experiment are from a kit that is routinely used in high school biology labs. �There are materials in this kit that you shouldn’t ingest like a Calcium Chloride solution which you shouldn’t ingest, but doesn’t pose a particularly great safety risk, and I am sure there are many liquids and other objects at NB that you shouldn’t ingest either. �There is also a laboratory strain of E. Coli in the kit (not the same as the pathogenic strains you often hear about causing food contamination). �This should actually be safe for people with normal immune systems to ingest, though there should be no reason for anyone to do this, and the closed culture tubes sitting in a dedicated fridge should pose no risk to anyone.<BR>
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I helped the group create this safety guidelines & protocol page <a href="https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Noisebridge_Lab_Safety_and_Ethics_Page">https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Noisebridge_Lab_Safety_and_Ethics_Page</a> . �I believe these guidelines & protocols suffice for the current “hello world” experiment, though not necessarily all work going forward. �If you look at the bottom, I pointed out that NB does not have proper hazardous materials processes or licenses in place, and therefore I believe that these materials should not be brought into NB at this time. �I also just updated your Safety wiki page to link to the lab safety page as well.<BR>
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I do have some thoughts and concerns with things moving forward which are really just coming from myself (not representing the entire SF DIYbio group here), but this seems like a good time to share them.<BR>
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First as others have pointed out there is clearly some communication problems between these two groups, and I think the idea of making Praveen an ambassador would be excellent. �I can’t really play this role as I’m not able to regularly attend your meetings and am not that familiar with NB.<BR>
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But secondly here’s some thoughts on NB/DIYBio. �As I mentioned above, the experiment the group is currently doing is really basic, and NB has been very generous in letting this group use its space. �I think there’s going to be a limit though in how much the group is going to be able to achieve in this current environment. �I’ve only visited NB twice, and what I’ve seen is an awesome bunch of shared hardware hacking equipment, shared table space, some storage space, and everything is totally jam packed :) �That’s not that different than a bio lab, except that the shared equipment is rather different as well as the types of surfaces. �We’ve seen the space issues just a single fridge has brought, but such a fridge is just one small part of common lab equipment. �I really like the environment and group governance systems that NB has setup, and I think DIYbio could benefit a lot from this, as well as the proximity to all of the other work going on at NB (there is a lot of hardware hacking needed as well for biology). �I just think that at a point, a larger amount of dedicated physical space is going to be required for equipment storage, safety equipment (fume hood/bio safety cabinet), safe storage of reagents, etc. �NB wouldn’t be what it is if it didn’t have room for all the equipment it currently has.<BR>
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I’m throwing this out there now to get your take on this and see what the interest level is in potentially creating such a space if you were to expand (can’t really see how it could be done without expanding given the current size of the space). �If there might be interest it would be good to figure out what it might take (i.e. there would have to be X new members to support the space financially). �If more involved work was to take place at NB, then it probably would also be necessary to figure out how to safely store chemicals that are much more dangerous than those being discussed at present, hazardous waste disposal processes & permits, necessary segregation of activities, etc.<BR>
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I think part of the problems being experienced is because SF DIYbio is currently in a bit of a neitherland in terms of its home and needs to eventually pick a location and settle down. �The group is currently looking at a number of options, of which NB is one, and if NB is to become the home, then eventually this relationship needs to become more formalized (with DIYbio members becoming NB members etc). �If another location becomes the physical home, I think there may still be many interesting opportunities for the two groups to collaborate on projects. �And regardless, NB has been very generous with its space while this all gets worked out, and I hope everyone recognizes this.<BR>
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-Josh <BR>
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