[Noisebridge-discuss] Another DIYbio thread!

Tito Jankowski titojankowski at gmail.com
Tue Mar 31 06:09:21 UTC 2009


Hi Christie,

Great, let's get to know each other! Here's some info to complement  
Josh's email:

"Who" is DIYbio:

San Francisco DIYbio group: ~7 active members, with 29 interested  
people on our google group. Praveen is our "Noisebridge ambassador".
DIYbio.org: a worldwide community of 700 interested members on the  
mailing list, with 5 other groups starting in NY, Boston, London,  
Chicago, and Seattle, and the website diybio.org.

DIYbio SF held our first meeting on January 10th, 2009.


"What" is DIYbio:
Linked is a 4 minute video by Mac Cowell, a founder of DIYbio.org, who  
lives in Boston.
http://vimeo.com/3454392?pg=embed&sec=

I look forward to more discussion and I hope that this information is  
a helpful start. Also, per Josh's email: I live in Sacramento, moved  
here from Hawaii in August.

Tito


On Mar 30, 2009, at 8:18 PM, Christie Dudley wrote:

> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Christie
>
> On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 7:15 PM, Tito Jankowski <titojankowski at gmail.com 
> > wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> 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.
>
> 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?
>
> 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?
>
> 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.
>
> 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!
>
> Tito
>
>
> On Mar 30, 2009, at 3:29 PM, Josh Perfetto wrote:
>
>> Hello all at NB,
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> I helped the group create this safety guidelines & protocol page https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Noisebridge_Lab_Safety_and_Ethics_Page 
>>  .  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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> -Josh
>> _______________________________________________
>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
>> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> I refuse to give up childish things.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.noisebridge.net/pipermail/noisebridge-discuss/attachments/20090330/00e0a7a1/attachment-0003.html>


More information about the Noisebridge-discuss mailing list