[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
>> _______________________________________________
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>
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>
> --
> I refuse to give up childish things.
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