2nd DIYBio Seattle Meeting
mgaldzic
mike
Sent to you by mgaldzic via Google Reader:
Last night the Seattle DIY biologists met for a second time, this time there were seventeen of us including myself, a first timer. The group trickled into Dan Heidel’s house in Phinney at around 8pm. Dan began by telling us about his project to set up lab space in a commercial space he rented in south Seattle which he is making open for use for serious projects that any of us would like to undertake. He has been buying up equipment and it is really starting to come together, but he feels that if someone did start a project now chances are at least one piece of necessary equipment would be missing. Not to mention consumables which he has none of. Needless to say his effort, called Seattle Open Bio Labs, LLC, is an amazing step forward in organizing and a very generous gesture to share it with the group. Dan has been buying equipment to create this environment where he hopes to create a community of Open Science projects. 
He hopes to encourage all to keep their lab notebooks online and open as transparency and open collaboration is a powerful driving force behind innovation. Of course if someone has a commercial goal in mind Dan is willing to listen about specific cases. The question of where to find funding for running this operation and supporting projects is a unanswered question, and for the time being individuals would have to fund themselves. The discussion of Dan’s lab answers the main question from Sandra Porter’s post (see 1st meeting) about where to practice DIYBio. (Sandra was unable to make this meeting). Still there remain some todo’s before starting, such as contacting the fire department for advice on any permits and addressing concerns of the wary (Dan does have Liability Insurance for the lab space).
After a significant amount of time we moved on. Dan does talk a lot, but not in a bad way. We discussed project ideas from various other members of the group.
- Lifesuit to help paralyzed people walk (see http://theyshallwalk.org/ for more)
- Growing neurons to generate solenoids, using growth factors and maybe brewing GFP beer!
- Produce our own enzymes to share the stock with the international DIY Bio community
- in vivo DNA synthesis, using light as input to dictate to the cell the sequence of DNA. This would allow you to change the code of the cell while it was running.
- Setting up DIY Computational Biology (smallest amount of hurdles on this one) BeBoBio
- Making fuels from microorganisms
- Geothermal cycling for speeding up growth
- Nanosilver
- Self stable ecological systems.
- Bacteria that can metabolize polyethylene; Dan said Pseudomonas Originalis which smell like grapes and plague burn victims may be capable
- Bio Weather Maps
Atendees:
Randy Hall, Kris Ganjam, Monty Reed, Dan Heidel, James Yang, Alec Nielsen, Tyler Casey, Matt Crowley, Michal Galdzicki, Scott Mason, Tracy Tucker, Max Berry, Ron Shevuah (4 names missing)
[I am missing some people and project ideas, please contact me if you were there but i didnt jot down your name, sorry. Some peoples names i got from the RSVPs so please if you weren’t there and i listed you above I appologize. ask me to correct it]
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mgaldzic
http://students.washington.edu/mgaldzic/wordpress/
On Jan 31, 7:05 pm, mgaldzic <mgald...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Here is my post about the Seattle DIYBio group meeting. Thanks to all
> those who participated,
> mike
>
> Sent to you by mgaldzic via Google Reader: 2nd DIYBio Seattle Meeting
> via bhiWay by mgaldzic on 1/31/09
> Last night the Seattle DIY biologists met for a second time, this time
> there were seventeen of us including myself, a first timer. The group
> trickled into Dan Heidel’s house in Phinney at around 8pm. Dan began by
> telling us about his project to set up lab space in a commercial space
> he rented in south Seattle which he is making open for use for serious
> projects that any of us would like to undertake. He has been buying up
> equipment and it is really starting to come together, but he feels that
> if someone did start a project now chances are at least one piece of
> necessary equipment would be missing. Not to mention consumables which
> he has none of. Needless to say his effort, called Seattle Open Bio
> Labs, LLC, is an amazing step forward in organizing and a very generous
> gesture to share it with the group. Dan has been buying equipment to
> create this environment where he hopes to create a community of Open
> driving force behind innovation. Of course if someone has a commercial
> goal in mind Dan is willing to listen about specific cases. The
> question of where to find funding for running this operation and
> supporting projects is a unanswered question, and for the time being
> individuals would have to fund themselves. The discussion of Dan’s lab
> answers the main question from Sandra Porter’s post (see 1st meeting)
> about where to practice DIYBio. (Sandra was unable to make this
> meeting). Still there remain some todo’s before starting, such as
> contacting the fire department for advice on any permits and addressing
> concerns of the wary (Dan does have Liability Insurance for the lab
> space).
>
> but not in a bad way. We discussed project ideas from various other
> members of the group.
>
> for more)
> - Growing neurons to generate solenoids, using growth factors and maybe
> brewing GFP beer!
> - Produce our own enzymes to share the stock with the international DIY
> Bio community
> - in vivo DNA synthesis, using light as input to dictate to the cell
> cell while it was running.
> this one) BeBoBio
> - Making fuels from microorganisms
> - Geothermal cycling for speeding up growth
> - Nanosilver
> - Self stable ecological systems.
> - Bacteria that can metabolize polyethylene; Dan said Pseudomonas
> capable
> Atendees:
>
> Randy Hall, Kris Ganjam, Monty Reed, Dan Heidel, James Yang, Alec
> Nielsen, Tyler Casey, Matt Crowley, Michal Galdzicki, Scott Mason,
> Tracy Tucker, Max Berry, Ron Shevuah (4 names missing)
>
> [I am missing some people and project ideas, please contact me if you
> were there but i didnt jot down your name, sorry. Some peoples names i
> got from the RSVPs so please if you weren’t there and i listed you
> above I appologize. ask me to correct it]
>
> Things you can do from here:
> - Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your
> favorite sites