[DIYbio] 3D printing medical devices

[kingjacob]

You can print in titanium using Direct Metal Laser Sintering. You can pretty much print with any material you can turn into a powder or resin. A friend of mine (papers below) even used a NaCl mixture to 3D print tissue scaffolding.

Computer-aided tissue engineering: benefiting from the control over scaffold micro-architecture.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22692601

Scaffold pore space modulation through intelligent design of dissolvable microparticles.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22692605

Computer-aided tissue engineering of a human vertebral body.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16240082

On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 4:45 PM, Nathan McCorkle <nmz...@gmail.com> wrote:

I've never heard anyone on here discussing printable hip
replacements... it sounds like a bad idea anyway, seeing as how poor
3D printer plastics fair in strength. Most joint replacements are made
of titanium, etc... Who put that in there?

It also has really old info scattered throughout, and doesn't mention
anything of the years of FBI interaction we've had

On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 9:02 PM, Bryan Bishop <kan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The wikipedia articles are still awful.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohacking
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIYbio
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopunk
>
> At least that last one is somewhat less awful. Anyone want to take cleanup
> duty?
>
> - Bryan
> http://heybryan.org/
> 1 512 203 0507
>
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--
Nathan McCorkle
Rochester Institute of Technology
College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics

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Cheers,
Jacob Shiach

editor-in-chief: Citizen Science Quarterly

founder: Brightwork CoResearch

twitter: @jacobshiach

[Michael Turner]

Note: the following is a tangent from the discussion about cleaning up
Wikipedia's DIYbio (and possibly some other relevant articles).

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 7:12 AM, kingjacob <king...@gmail.com> wrote:
> You can print in titanium using Direct Metal Laser Sintering.

[snip]

Yes, but is making bone replacements that have no biological
components within scope for DIYbio? It might be biomimesis, and
potentially DIY. But where's the actual biology? That's the question
here.

Regards,
Michael Turner
Project Persephone
1-25-33 Takadanobaba
Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 169-0075
(+81) 90-5203-8682
tur...@projectpersephone.org
http://www.projectpersephone.org/

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward
together in the same direction." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

[Nathan McCorkle]

Michael, I think printed bone replacements falls under DIYbio, as it is merely an equipment like the dremelFuge, openPCR, etc

[Michael Turner]

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 10:31 AM, Nathan McCorkle <nmz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Michael, I think printed bone replacements falls under DIYbio, as it is
> merely an equipment like the dremelFuge, openPCR, etc

The printed component itself is "equipment"?

[Bryan Bishop]

On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 8:26 PM, Michael Turner
<michael.eu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, but is making bone replacements that have no biological
> components within scope for DIYbio? It might be biomimesis, and
> potentially DIY. But where's the actual biology? That's the question
> here.

Sure, probably. I think Nathan brought up the point originally because
it looked like someone just threw a random sentence into the DIYbio
article on Wikipedia. There are many things that you could do on your
own, but is enumerating that list within the scope of a Wikipedia
article?

At least, that's my interpretation of his comments.

[Bryan Bishop]

On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 10:12 PM, Michael Turner wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 10:56 AM, Bryan Bishop wrote:

>> On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 8:26 PM, Michael Turner wrote:
>>> Yes, but is making bone replacements that have no biological
>>> components within scope for DIYbio? It might be biomimesis, and
>>> potentially DIY. But where's the actual biology? That's the question
>>> here.
>>
>> Sure, probably.
>

> Do you mean "sure, probably, that's the question here"?

No, in this case I mean that a do-it-yourself biologist could
conceivably make a prosthetic object from plastic, implant himself
with it, and claim that he did the project himself (because, in this
situation we're imagining, he did). This is sometimes under the wing
of the field called bioengineering if you go look for these people at
schools. But yes there's still biology involved in it. But to my
knowledge, the only group of people working on DIY prosthetics has
been the one that Jonathan Kuniholm associates with. The item in
question in the article was about some academic lab? I didn't look
closely, Nathan could chime in here.

> If I now sound painfully anal-retentive to you, well, that's how the

Nope, you do not sound painfully anal-retentive.

> good parts of Wikipedia get built and maintained: by neurotics like
> me. You think I'm bad? Try these people on for size:

No, I don't think you're bad at all. What gave you that impression :-(.

>> ... There are many things that you could do on your

>> own, but is enumerating that list within the scope of a Wikipedia
>> article?
>

> Yes, absolutely, IF it's about some DIY topic on Wikipedia. And there
> are many of those, even within subcategories of DIY, e.g.,:

Okay. So this guy keeps billions of lists:

http://ideonomy.mit.edu/gunkel.html

Surely they do not all belong in an article about biohacking ;-).

> And now I'm trying to interpret your interpretation. May I suggest
> that the discussion move to where such discussions are supposed to
> happen, which is the Wikipedia talk page for the article(s)?

No. I already have my comments on the discussion page anyway. My
original intention was to talk about this with other biohackers
because they are not on that talk page. If you notice, I have been
highly responsive on the talk page over multiple years. If you have
something to bring up on there, I am sure I will respond quickly.

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:DIYbio
>
> That way, I (and Kanzure, who is pitching in too) can more easily

Dude, that's my email address. Who did you think you were talking with? :-(

Carry on :-).

[kingjacob]

@michael: just a heads up, in google groups you can fork a conversation by editing the subject. So rather than clutter the wiki cleaning discussion which is still over here with talk of 3D printing Medical Devices, we now have two conversations.

Anywho, back to 3D printing. Yes, the articles I posted are academic but that's really just a word. Maybe 7 years ago when the work was first done it would have been outside the scope(read: price range) of DIYbio but not today. Even more so yesterday, thanks to FormLabs. You can do a lot of cool 3D phase change stuff with Laser Sintering or Stereolithographic printing.

Also, apologies about the pay walled links, I assumed "Full Text Available" meant available, not available if you pay $24.99, stupid springer. Do "not" email me offlist if you want a copy.

[Michael Turner]

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 4:33 PM, kingjacob <king...@gmail.com> wrote:
> @michael: just a heads up, in google groups you can fork a conversation by
> editing the subject. So rather than clutter the wiki cleaning discussion
> which is still over here with talk of 3D printing Medical Devices, we now
> have two conversations.

They aren't quite separate issues if, in fact, the 3D printing of
medical devices -- specifically implantable ones -- fails to qualify
as DIYbio.

> Anywho, back to 3D printing. Yes, the articles I posted are academic but
> that's really just a word. Maybe 7 years ago when the work was first done it
> would have been outside the scope(read: price range) of DIYbio but not
> today.

I need what Wikipedia calls a reliable source. Can you give me a quote
from a peer-reviewed journal, book, news article? Blogs and mailing
lists generally don't count. I've got you saying that 3D printing of
medical devices (or components thereof) is DIYbio. Period. Someone
else is saying it's DIYbio if you then implant the device in yourself.
Presumably, if you implant one in someone else, you're practicing
medicine, which is not exactly DIY unless you're doing it without a
license, in which case ....

Forget hypotheticals.

Give me a proper source.

[kingjacob]

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 3:09 AM, Michael Turner <michael.eu...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 4:33 PM, kingjacob <king...@gmail.com> wrote:
> @michael: just a heads up, in google groups you can fork a conversation by
> editing the subject. So rather than clutter the wiki cleaning discussion
> which is still over here with talk of 3D printing Medical Devices, we now
> have two conversations.

They aren't quite separate issues if, in fact, the 3D printing of
medical devices -- specifically implantable ones -- fails to qualify
as DIYbio. 

To clarify, an eeg, glucometer and genotyping kit are just a few medical devices people have done as DIYbio. I'm not talking about implants for people to self implant. Though I wouldn't be opposed to talking about designing implants for others or even yourself if you partnered with an MD to properly carry out any procedure.

It's bioengineering, which is kind biology so I think it qualifies, not that there are really any qualifications of DIYbio ;)

> Anywho, back to 3D printing. Yes, the articles I posted are academic but
> that's really just a word. Maybe 7 years ago when the work was first done it
> would have been outside the scope(read: price range) of DIYbio but not
> today.

I need what Wikipedia calls a reliable source. Can you give me a quote
from a peer-reviewed journal, book, news article? Blogs and mailing
lists generally don't count. I've got you saying that 3D printing of
medical devices (or components thereof) is DIYbio. Period. Someone
else is saying it's DIYbio if you then implant the device in yourself.
Presumably, if you implant one in someone else, you're practicing
medicine, which is not exactly DIY unless you're doing it without a
license, in which case ....

Forget hypotheticals.

Give me a proper source.

 

Can't. I don't know anyone in DIYbio who's used 3D printing to make a medical device. That's why I started a thread on the subject.

I'm also sorry to inform you that there are no "proper sources" on what is or isn't DIYbio. The closest thing we have is a code of ethics that really only applies to those that follow it. So paradoxes will always exist on what people think is or isn't DIYbio. You don't even have to do it all yourself for it to be DIYbio.

[Michael Turner]

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 7:20 PM, kingjacob <king...@gmail.com> wrote:

> To clarify, an eeg, glucometer and genotyping kit are just a few medical
> devices people have done as DIYbio. I'm not talking about implants for
> people to self implant. Though I wouldn't be opposed to talking about
> designing implants for others or even yourself if you partnered with an MD
> to properly carry out any procedure.

The specific passage I deleted from the article was a hip replacement
that wasn't biological. DIYmed? OK, whatever. But medicine is not
biology. It just uses biology, among other sciences.

> It's bioengineering, which is kind biology so I think it qualifies, not that
> there are really any qualifications of DIYbio ;)

Thanks for clarifying that there's no real clarity here. I was
confused about why I was confused.

>> Give me a proper source.
>
> Can't. I don't know anyone in DIYbio who's used 3D printing to make a
> medical device. That's why I started a thread on the subject.

OK, end of story, then, as far as mentioning implantables is concerned
on Wikipedia articles about DIYbio, anyway.

> I'm also sorry to inform you that there are no "proper sources" on what is
> or isn't DIYbio. The closest thing we have is a code of ethics that really
> only applies to those that follow it.

Wow. So if someone engages in DIYbio practices that violate DIYbio
ethics, it's actually NOT a violation of those ethics because those
ethics don't apply to those who violate them?

I think you need to look up the word "ethic".

> ... So paradoxes will always exist on what

> people think is or isn't DIYbio. You don't even have to do it all yourself
> for it to be DIYbio.

OK, so you also use DIYsemantics here. I get it now.

Unfortunately, that doesn't fly on Wikipedia. And this thread started
out of consideration of how to improve the DIYbio article and related
ones, on Wikipedia. I think I'll go back to that one now.

[Jason Bobe]

On Thursday, September 27, 2012 6:36:14 AM UTC-4, Michael Turner wrote:

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 7:20 PM, kingjacob <king...@gmail.com> wrote:


>> Give me a proper source.
>
> Can't. I don't know anyone in DIYbio who's used 3D printing to make a
> medical device. That's why I started a thread on the subject.

OK, end of story, then, as far as mentioning implantables is concerned
on Wikipedia articles about DIYbio, anyway.

> I'm also sorry to inform you that there are no "proper sources" on what is
> or isn't DIYbio. The closest thing we have is a code of ethics that really
> only applies to those that follow it.

I've always thought of DIYbio very broadly.  I'm afraid of falling down the rabbit hole with you on definitions, but diagnostics, sensing devices, health and medical equipment and devices, are all things that I have always considered in the scope of DIYbio (these areas motivate much of my participation in the community).  I hope lots more folks join the community from these domains.

In terms of sources for Wikipedia.  Jordan Miller, who works partly out of hive76 in Philly has left a trail of citable sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18677627

http://summit.oshwa.org/sweet-science-3d-printed-sugar-templates-for-regenerative-medicine/

http://blog.nextfabstudio.com/post/26577479621/our-3d-printer-workshop-instructor-jordan-miller-on-bbc

http://3dprinterbuildingworkshop.eventbrite.com/

 

Hopefully there will be more!  :)

Thanks,
Jason

[Michael Turner]

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 9:48 PM, Jason Bobe <jaso...@gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]

> I've always thought of DIYbio very broadly. I'm afraid of falling down the
> rabbit hole with you on definitions,

Down the rabbit hole, you get to Wonderland, where Humpty Dumpty is
telling you that a word means whatever he wants it to mean. Let's not
follow Alice there.

> ... but diagnostics, sensing devices,

> health and medical equipment and devices, are all things that I have always
> considered in the scope of DIYbio (these areas motivate much of my
> participation in the community).

The specific example that brought this up was using 3D printing to
make a bone replacement. That's not a device or a piece of equipment.
Installing a hip replacement is not something you do on yourself. In
the part of the Wikipedia article I deleted, the bone replacement
material was metallic. Biomimesis, yes. But is it Do It Yourself
Biology? How so?

Now, I'd say it *might* make some sense to say that making parts of
*equipment* that has DIYbio applications using 3D printing might make
some sense, if the application of the equipment was specifically
biological.

> ... I hope lots more folks join the community
> from these domains.

Who joins an activity from what community doesn't define a term,
especially if there's an element of hobbyism to the activity, meaning
that anyone can join. And I'm trying to figure out how the domain is
defined, so that the decision about Wikipedia articles (merging,
deleting, editing) can be made with reference to definitions.

> In terms of sources for Wikipedia. Jordan Miller, who works partly out of
> hive76 in Philly has left a trail of citable sources:
>
> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18677627

... which is about giving up on biology as a medium for 3D printing,
because the cells die, and going with something not alive.

> http://summit.oshwa.org/sweet-science-3d-printed-sugar-templates-for-regenerative-medicine/

Same thing.

> http://blog.nextfabstudio.com/post/26577479621/our-3d-printer-workshop-instructor-jordan-miller-on-bbc

Same thing.

> http://3dprinterbuildingworkshop.eventbrite.com/

Workshop instructor's "research in the department of Bioengineering
combines chemistry and rapid prototyping to direct cultured human
cells to form more complex organizations of living vessels and
tissues."

Which doesn't really speak to the issue of whether using NON-living
things to make *other* NON-living things should count as DIYbio.
Where's the biology? In the case of implants, "biomimesis", perhaps.
Besides, this looks like this was just a generic 3D printing workshop.

3D printing is a generic technology. Spreadsheets are a generic
technology. If I use a spreadsheet to keep track of lab data, does
that make spreadsheet technology DIYbio? If I use the same spreadsheet
software for meal planning, does that make meal planning DIYbio?
(Meals are made out of cells, right?)

Where does it end?

Regards,
Michael Turner
Project Persephone
1-25-33 Takadanobaba
Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 169-0075
(+81) 90-5203-8682
tur...@projectpersephone.org
http://www.projectpersephone.org/

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward
together in the same direction." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

> --
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[Jason Bobe]

On Thursday, September 27, 2012 9:30:29 AM UTC-4, Michael Turner wrote:

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 9:48 PM, Jason Bobe <jaso...@gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> I've always thought of DIYbio very broadly.  I'm afraid of falling down the
> rabbit hole with you on definitions,

Down the rabbit hole, you get to Wonderland, where Humpty Dumpty is
telling you that a word means whatever he wants it to mean. Let's not
follow Alice there.

> ... but diagnostics, sensing devices,
> health and medical equipment and devices, are all things that I have always
> considered in the scope of DIYbio (these areas motivate much of my
> participation in the community).

The specific example that brought this up was using 3D printing to
make a bone replacement. That's not a device or a piece of equipment.
Installing a hip replacement is not something you do on yourself. In
the part of the Wikipedia article I deleted, the bone replacement
material was metallic. Biomimesis, yes. But is it Do It Yourself
Biology? How so?

I agree its fuzzy.  But fuzzy is OK (at least with me).  There are both DIY and non-DIY components here.  Most things will be that way.  There are bio and non-bio things here.  Most will be that way too. 

Now, I'd say it *might* make some sense to say that making parts of
*equipment* that has DIYbio applications using 3D printing might make
some sense, if the application of the equipment was specifically
biological.

I know what you're saying.  Often, it might the goals of a particular project that allow us to fill in the checkbox "biology", e.g. DNA sequencing deals with sugars, not necessarily biology directly, but the goals of working with DNA intersect with human biology or microbial biology, etc.  

Jason

[Michael Turner]

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 11:49 PM, Jason Bobe <jaso...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree its fuzzy. But fuzzy is OK (at least with me). There are both DIY
> and non-DIY components here. Most things will be that way. There are bio
> and non-bio things here. Most will be that way too.

You can't write a fuzzy Wikipedia article, which is the original issue
here. Well, you can, but it'll be a bad one. Not unlike the status
quo. Which is what I was trying to help out with.

[Jason Bobe]

Okay. So this guy keeps billions of lists:

http://ideonomy.mit.edu/gunkel.html

Surely they do not all belong in an article about biohacking ;-).

haha, awesome link. I like how Gunkel's photo is him riding a bike with a cat sitting on his shoulder.  I guess its hard to sit in the lap of someone riding a bike.  :)

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

On Thursday, September 27, 2012 6:30:29 AM UTC-7, Michael Turner wrote:

> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18677627

... which is about giving up on biology as a medium for 3D printing,
because the cells die, and going with something not alive.

Might want to read that again - sounds like you completely missed the point on this one. This (and the couple links below it, which are all about the same development) is about using a 3D printer to print sugar filaments, which you can then grow living cells on. After washing out the sugar filaments, they leave behind an effective capillary network to supply the tissue with blood and nutrients, circumventing one of the biggest problems people have had in constructing tissues "from scratch", as it were.

Now, you could argue whether this belongs in a DIYbio wikipedia article, since the technique was developed in an academic lab. It's definitely within the spirit of biohacking in the sense that it uses some great out-of-the-box thinking (aka "hacking") and uses some very cheap and accessible tools from the maker culture (reprap 3D printer). But it's still done by professional scientists (if you count the grad student who probably thought of this hare-brained idea as a "professional scientist"), and likely with some sort of research funding support. There's nothing to stop a dedicated DIY team from replicating this though, and we've seriously considered doing so in the BioPrinter project at BioCurious.

Here's another example of a borderline case of what you might or might not consider DIYbio / biohacking, depending on which definition you adhere to. Russel Nyches, who is doing a PhD at UC Davis, has been developing some really cool tools using 3D printing and Arduinos, including a 3D printed bead beating adaptor that mounts onto a Craftsman automatic hammer, custom 3D printed 96-well plates, and a wireless, tweeting Arduino based pH monitoring platform.

Again, you could argue that this is all part of his "job" (i.e., being a grad student and getting a PhD) and therefore not DIY. But I think you'd be missing out on a lot of really interesting development within the broad spectrum of DIYbio if you took that narrow an interpretation.

Patrik

PS: Stop harping on the 3D printed hip replacement. I think most people here agree with you that this was not a great example of DIYbio. There are better examples along those lines though. I seem to remember a story of someone who 3D printed part of his own anatomy from a cat scan, and then brought the 3D print to his doctor - I think that would definitely qualify as DIY + bio, even though in the end it still involved a real MD to interpret the results. Does anyone have a link to that particular story - or am I not remembering this right?

[William Heath]

Hi All,

I have been very interested in doing bio printing.  I tried to get an old hp deskjet printer and make it print a jello like substance but couldn't even do that.  I am completely frustrated with how to do this.  Can anyone give me some real help to figure out how to do this for a diybio person?  I am trying to think of what would be a good approach to developing the diybio bio printer.  My idea was that I would start with trying to print a jello like gel with different colors in the wells to "test" that it is working.  After I complete that task I would then move on to perhaps printing some plant cells or something.  I would then like to print cells that are not dangerous to work with like human cells.  I am curious are bone cells considered safe?  What cells are appropriate for bio printing that would be safe?  I keep looking at the makerbot and thinking in my mind, can't this be adapted to bio printing?  The only thing I see missing is that the platform needs to move up and down that is being printed on.  Isn't that all that is missing?  I guess the resolution may not be high enough either.  Anyway, I would love to get a simple working bio printer up and working, help me ob1, YOUR MY ONLY HOPE! :>

-Tim

P.S.

I turn cell phones into robots.  I am very familiar with arduinos, laser printing, serial communication.  You can see my latest robot here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_q5WD3dTkE

[Michael Turner]

On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 3:42 AM, Patrik D'haeseleer <pat...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, September 27, 2012 6:30:29 AM UTC-7, Michael Turner wrote:
>>
>>
>> > http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18677627
>>
>> ... which is about giving up on biology as a medium for 3D printing,
>> because the cells die, and going with something not alive.
>
>
> Might want to read that again - sounds like you completely missed the point
> on this one.

[snip]

No, I read it through twice. 3D printing of *cells* doesn't work (yet,
anyway). So they do 3D printing of something that isn't alive. I got
that the first time. And it was done in a clinical/formal lab setting.
The problem remains: does *all* 3D printing of non-biological stuff
that COULD be used for DIYbio count as DIYbio, wherever it's done, for
whatever purpose, by whomever, with whatever funding?

> Now, you could argue whether this belongs in a DIYbio wikipedia article,
> since the technique was developed in an academic lab.

Is any DIYbio practitioner actually doing this outside an academic or
industrial lab?

> ... It's definitely within

> the spirit of biohacking in the sense that it uses some great out-of-the-box
> thinking (aka "hacking") and uses some very cheap and accessible tools from
> the maker culture (reprap 3D printer). But it's still done by professional
> scientists (if you count the grad student who probably thought of this

> hare-brained idea as a "professional scientist"), ...

The whole first project for my NPO here in Japan is based on a
hare-brained idea from a grad student who funded his work on
Kickstarter. So I have no particular prejudices there.

> ... and likely with some sort
> of research funding support.

THAT's where one might start drawing the line, I think.

> There's nothing to stop a dedicated DIY team
> from replicating this though, and we've seriously considered doing so in the
> BioPrinter project at BioCurious.

If you can affordably use 3D printing to make some substrate (as in
the above case) or a custom lab equipment component for your DIYbio
projects, that contributes to a body of DIY practice, regardless of
how many millions of public/private dollars went into the original
invention of the technique.

But remember where this started. A hip joint made out of 3D-printed
metal? (I respond to your complaint about my "harping", below.)
Implanted by a professional? Operating under an actionable code of
professional ethics, on top of a body of government regulations? In an
institutional (clinical) setting? (They aren't doing hip replacements
at home or in educational community centers, last I checked.)

> Here's another example of a borderline case of what you might or might not
> consider DIYbio / biohacking, depending on which definition you adhere to.
> Russel Nyches, who is doing a PhD at UC Davis, has been developing some
> really cool tools using 3D printing and Arduinos, including a 3D printed
> bead beating adaptor that mounts onto a Craftsman automatic hammer, custom
> 3D printed 96-well plates, and a wireless, tweeting Arduino based pH
> monitoring platform.
>
> Again, you could argue that this is all part of his "job" (i.e., being a
> grad student and getting a PhD) and therefore not DIY. But I think you'd be
> missing out on a lot of really interesting development within the broad
> spectrum of DIYbio if you took that narrow an interpretation.

There's already a way, one that's Wikipedia
policy/guideline-compliant, to not "miss out" on this kind of thing. I
would have no problem with citing, and quoting from, Nyches'
publications in a Wikipedia article about DIYbio -- IF he gives credit
to the DIYbio movement where it's due.

In fact, I'd love it if there were a whole article section on any such
phenomenon. If DIYbio is a kind of "spin-off" from institutional
biotech research, it should also get credit for any "spin-in" that
happens. But on Wikipedia, credit has to be [[WP:V]] - verifiable from
reliable sources. Just saying, in effect, "Hey, looky! Some people in
some labs are doing some stuff that we did first!", in a Wikipedia
article -- you can't do it. That's [[WP:OR]] - "original research",
which is not allowed.

> PS: Stop harping on the 3D printed hip replacement. I think most people here
> agree with you that this was not a great example of DIYbio.

Perhaps most would agree, but where's the vote tally? If some of the
more interested list members joined the Talk page discussion for
Wikipedia's DIYbio article, we could determine whether your intuition
about their feelings was correct, by relying on a Wikipedia editorial
process. If there were significant differences of opinion on that Talk
page about what's within scope, and no Talk page article consensus
emerged, we could even subject the discussion to long-evolved
processes for settling matters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#Disputes

Look: I know I sound like the old joke: "I'm from the government, and
I'm here to help." But articles get good on Wikipedia, and stay good,
only because of a degree of formal process, evolved by volunteers --
DIYgov, if you will.

I'd love for DIYbio and other related articles to reach Featured article status.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_criteria

But note the stringent requirements of section 1. We can all easily
point to articles on Wikipedia that flunk 1(a)-1(d). As for 1(e),
well, when you have people on this mailing list asserting that DIYbio
ethics only apply to biohackers who don't want to violate them
(rendering the concept of "ethic" utterly vacuous) the stage is set
for getting biohacking articles listed in another place instead:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars

> .... I seem to remember a story of someone who

> 3D printed part of his own anatomy from a cat scan, and then brought the 3D
> print to his doctor - I think that would definitely qualify as DIY + bio,

Only if you conflate medicine with biology. Medicine is not a science
-- as several doctors I know will firmly assert. It's a profession.
Nor is it a branch of engineering. It *uses* techniques and
technologies inspired by a branch of biology called medical science.
But perhaps not as much as it should.

> even though in the end it still involved a real MD to interpret the results.

... an MD who probably did the diagnosis seat-of-the-pants, rather
than rely on scientific criteria. Expert systems built in the late 80s
outperformed most doctors when programmed for diagnosing specific
ailments. Doctors rejected them as an infringement on their
professional judgment.

Medicine is not a science. It is not engineering either.

The guy who 3D-printed his own tumor or organ from CAT-scan data
didn't necessarily know the first thing about biology or biotech.

And home CAT-scanners aren't on the horizon in any case.

Regards,
Michael Turner
Project Persephone
1-25-33 Takadanobaba
Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 169-0075
(+81) 90-5203-8682
tur...@projectpersephone.org
http://www.projectpersephone.org/

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward
together in the same direction." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

> --
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> To post to this group, send email to diy...@googlegroups.com.
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> diybio+un...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/diybio/-/vko-SPA_yGoJ.

[Nathan McCorkle]

As far as I remember, the main concern is getting a piezo electric
print head over a heating type, where the heat causes the ink to
expand and squirt out. This cooks cells and proteins.

Biocurious has a project wiki for their bioprinter project:
http://biocuriousmembers.pbworks.com/w/page/48912717/Bioprinter%20Project

[Michael Turner]

On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 12:34 PM, Nathan McCorkle <nmz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> As far as I remember, the main concern is getting a piezo electric
> print head over a heating type, where the heat causes the ink to
> expand and squirt out. This cooks cells and proteins.

Speaking as someone who actually read certain articles that someone
else here says I completely missed the point of, the problem seems
instead to be this:

"The big challenge in understanding how to grow large artificial
tissue is how to keep all the cells alive in these engineered tissues,
because when you put a lot of cells together, they end up taking
nutrients and oxygen from neighbouring cells and end up suffocating
and dying."

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18677627

It seems that even the thinnest cellular layer you can "print" is
still "a lot of cells together" -- smothering and starving each other.
Presumably, the printed sugar conduits (whose walls dissolve) need
only last long enough to get the cells they are hosting some
nutrients, i.e., a kind of artificial angiogenesis that'll do until
the real thing comes along.

Wow, I almost sounded like a biohacker there! (IRL: I needed to do a
reverse-lookup on google to get "angiogenesis". So actually not.)

Regards,
Michael Turner
Project Persephone
1-25-33 Takadanobaba
Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 169-0075
(+81) 90-5203-8682
tur...@projectpersephone.org
http://www.projectpersephone.org/

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward
together in the same direction." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 12:09 AM, Michael Turner
<michael.eu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 12:34 PM, Nathan McCorkle <nmz...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> As far as I remember, the main concern is getting a piezo electric
>> print head over a heating type, where the heat causes the ink to
>> expand and squirt out. This cooks cells and proteins.
>
> Speaking as someone who actually read certain articles that someone
> else here says I completely missed the point of, the problem seems
> instead to be this:
>

It works, just not well. That doesn't mean the technique should be
discarded. I didn't read that article, but I chat with Jordan Miller
often, and have skimmed through his academic publication on the matter
when he first finished it up.

I could very well see the techniques being complementary, on the same
XY gantry even.

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Actually, both thermal and piezo inkjet technologies work just fine. People have looked specifically for thermal shock in live mammalian cells printed with thermal inkjet technology, and essentially not found any. Likewise, people claim piezo inkjets may be problematic, because they use ultrasonic frequencies similar to those used to lyse cells.

Fact is, there are different teams using (and swearing by) both technologies, but they both seem to work.

We've printed live E. coli cells from a thermal inkjet head onto agar plates with no problem at BioCurious:

https://secure.flickr.com/photos/68942898@N05/8032098121/in/pool-bioprinter

 We did decide to move away from the scavenged inkjet printer we were using originally, but mainly because the 1200 dpi resolution you find in most current inkjets is starting to push the boundaries in terms of nozzle size etc. 1200 dots per inch means a pixel size of 21 micron, but the print nozzles are actually quite a bit smaller than that. Plus we discovered that the inkjet cartridges we were using seemed to have a filter built into the silicon with hole size that was even smaller than that, so we might not even be able to print E. coli with that one.

Academic labs using off-the-shelf inkjet technology are typically using a ancient HP 500 model that has native 300 dpi resolution - those seem to be ideal in terms of nozzle size etc:

http://www.jove.com/video/3681/creating-transient-cell-membrane-pores-using-a-standard-inkjet-printer

We decided to go with a special low-resolution HP print cartridge designed for printing labels onto things like cabling etc. Just 12 nozzles at 96 dpi, but the big advantage is that someone has already figured out how to drive the print head, and developed an open hardware Arduino shield for it:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nicholasclewis/inkshield-an-open-source-inkjet-shield-for-arduino
http://nicholasclewis.com/projects/inkshield/

One of these days we'll be writing all of this up in a nice instructable. In fact, much of tonight's BioPrinter meeting was dedicated to putting together a light tent some we can take some nicer photographs, and then taking pics as we took the BioPrinter apart down to its bare bones...

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

On Thursday, September 27, 2012 3:40:56 PM UTC-7, wgh...@gmail.com wrote:

I have been very interested in doing bio printing.  I tried to get an old hp deskjet printer and make it print a jello like substance but couldn't even do that.

Have you tried just printing with food coloring in water? That is the first thing we did, and that worked fine. One problem you may be having with a gel is that the inkjet head expects a fluid of a certain viscosity. Plus as the thermal inkjet vaporizes some of the ink, some gelatin may burn and eventually clog the print head.

The second thing we tried, after food coloring, was to print with arabinose in water onto filter paper. Then we put the filter paper onto a lawn of E. coli with the pGLO plasmid containing GFP under an arabinose inducible promoter, so wherever we had printed arabinose, we saw the GFP light up:

https://secure.flickr.com/photos/68942898@N05/6799091190/in/pool-bioprinter

We clearly got a lot of diffusion of the arabinose, but you can still make out the BioCurious logo lighting up in GFP.

Cells suspended in liquid should be feasible using an inkjet, but if you really want to print with cells embedded in a gel, you'll probably want to move to a syringe pump system. We're currently looking at mounting a DIY syringe pump (probably driven by another linear actuator from a CD drive) on our BioPrinter.
 

[William Heath]

Wow, this is the most real info on bio printing I have ever come across thanks!  I have a couple more quick questions for you.  When you used the food coloring did you just print it onto paper?  What are you using for x-y positioning of the printer head?  Are you printing to a well or what are you actually printing on?  Somehow you ended up with something in a petri dish but I am confused how you got it in there.  Can you please elaborate?  I am quite excited by your progress.

-Tim

P.S.

The main issue as I understand it is positioning.  It sounds like your using cd motors of some kind to solve this issue.  Can you elaborate on how your solving this issue?  What is the printing resolution needed for diybio cell printing in your opinion?  Is 96 dpi too much or not enough etc...?  Makerbot appears to have solved much of the issues your probably facing, have you looked at adapting that platform to bio printing just curious?

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/diybio/-/urtGyw6woRUJ.

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Heh - the food coloring (and the arabinose) was just with an old inkjet printer we rescued from the sidewalk. Cut off the top of the cartridge, rinse out thoroughly, fill with water + food coloring, print test page.

For our second generation bioprinter, we built an XY-platform from the read head mechanism from two old CD drives (need to search around for the type that uses a stepper motor), driven by an Arduino. This part was entirely inspired by Hackteria's work along these lines:

http://hackteria.org/wiki/index.php/HackteriaLab_2011_Commons#Micro_Manipulator

http://hackteria.org/wiki/index.php/DIY_Micro_Dispensing_and_Bio_Printing

http://hackteria.org/wiki/index.php/DIY_Micro_Laser_Cutter

http://hackteria.org/wiki/index.php/DIY_Microfluidics#Advanced_DIY_Microfluidics

http://hackteria.org/?p=1186

And I think they got their idea from these guys:

http://builders.reprap.org/2010/08/selective-laser-sintering-part-8.html

[Jeswin]

On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 3:43 AM, Patrik D'haeseleer <pat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Have you tried just printing with food coloring in water? That is the first
> thing we did, and that worked fine. One problem you may be having with a gel
> is that the inkjet head expects a fluid of a certain viscosity. Plus as the
> thermal inkjet vaporizes some of the ink, some gelatin may burn and
> eventually clog the print head.
>

Just an idea, but is it possible to have 2 liquid substances that
solidify outside the print head? Or 2 substances of enough viscosity
that they don't clog the print heads but at a certain temperature and
in contact with each other, they solidify?

On another note, addressing this whole "what is DiyBio Wikipedia"
controversy, let me suggest that you all work experiments out and in
the future, we can determine if it was DIYbio or not. History is
written after the event, and then it is analyzed and rewritten many
times. Just do experiments and take lots of notes.

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

On Friday, September 28, 2012 5:22:22 AM UTC-7, phillyj wrote:

On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 3:43 AM, Patrik D'haeseleer <pat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Have you tried just printing with food coloring in water? That is the first
> thing we did, and that worked fine. One problem you may be having with a gel
> is that the inkjet head expects a fluid of a certain viscosity. Plus as the
> thermal inkjet vaporizes some of the ink, some gelatin may burn and
> eventually clog the print head.
>
Just an idea, but is it possible to have 2 liquid substances that
solidify outside the print head? Or 2 substances of enough viscosity
that they don't clog the print heads but at a certain temperature and
in contact with each other, they solidify?

We thought of doing the old CaCl + sodium alginate trick used for spherification in molecular gastronomy. Seems like there's some interesting cell and enzyme immobilization tricks you can do with alginate. I haven't really looked into this yet, but there might be some creative new applications along those lines, once you add a printer into the mix as well.

If you're thinking of printing with something that has a significantly higher viscosity than water, you really should consider a syringe pump instead of an inkjet print head though. That also seems to be the approach most of the research in organ printing is heading. Partly because it just allows you to put down a lot more volume, so you don't wind up having to take hours and hours to print an organ using pico-liter droplets.

I tell people that inkjet technology theoretically allows you to put down different cell types precisely where you want them to be in 3D. But in reality, you probably don't even *want* that high level of precision. Probably better to deposit a big glob of cells, and let them reorganize themselves into the right patterns.

[William Heath]

Hi Again,

Its like drugs to me to hear about this project.  I appreciate your continued assistance in helping me understand more about your project.  In the XY configuration, where was the inkjet cartridge, was it attached in such a way that was independent of the printer?  I can't explain why I want to do this, but I just do :>  I will keep asking questions until you won't let me anymore or they kick me off the list :>

-Tim

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/diybio/-/mud9LL6ykoIJ.

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Here's a good view of our printer, after we had first gotten it to print (in ink):

https://secure.flickr.com/photos/68942898@N05/7175637623/in/pool-bioprinter

The grey rectangle on top is one of the linear actuators we scavenged out of the CD drives. It's got a little stepper motor with a worm gear, moving the CD read head back and forth. The inkjet cartridge is mounted on the read head. We had to cut out some of the grey frame to allow the cartridge to move the full distance (only 2 inch or so - the radius of a CD).

There's another one of these linear actuators on the bottom, at a 90 degree angle. The printing platform (in this case, a post-it note) sits on top of the read head there. Only the read heads and what's attached to them are moving: the bottom head is moving front to back with the post-it, the top head is moving left to right with the print head.

We'll have some better pics for you guys later - hoping to put together an Instructable on this soon.

Patrik

[William Heath]

Wow man!!!  My kingdom for a video.  Is this cartridge moving or the platform moving or both?  You guys rock!!!!  My other quick question is at some point your going to have to make a well with a submerged platform that moves in the z direction.  Have you given any thought as to how you will accomplish this?  What is the "dpi" of this current setup?

-Tim

P.S.

I wish there was some easier way to work with the print cartridge.  Why is working with a print cartridge so very complex?!!!

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/diybio/-/N0n_xy435-AJ.

[General Oya]

I went to BUGGS community lab this saturday here in Baltimore and was chatting with Tom about this technology. He and I both have been thinking about the use of this on bone and possibly ivory.
I really would like to forward an initiative = Faux' Real to see if we can harness and mass produce ivory and endangered furs to destroy the lucrative trade in poaching that continues at an accelerated pace during these trying global economic times.
I also envision synbio experiments using various custom leather epidermal/connective tissue biomaterials. It would be cool to get together some leather experts and biomaterial engineers to play with the levels of elastin, collagen, keratin in say hippo, croc, shark, rhino cells to find a means of creating bulletproof leathers or something similar.
Sound possible to anyone, perhaps a link towards a bone oriented bioprinter or something?
Ryan

[Michael Turner]

On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 12:40 PM, General Oya <gener...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I went to BUGGS community lab this saturday here in Baltimore and was
> chatting with Tom about this technology. He and I both have been thinking
> about the use of this on bone and possibly ivory.
> I really would like to forward an initiative = Faux' Real to see if we can
> harness and mass produce ivory and endangered furs to destroy the lucrative
> trade in poaching that continues at an accelerated pace during these trying
> global economic times.

[snip]

Especially good if you could clone out of the wild. That way, there's
little or no basis for distinguishing between "fake" and "real"
because they'd both be about as real as a DNA test could determine.

However, from speaking very recently to someone about to enter a
bioengineering PhD program specializing in tissue growth, I'm forced
to wonder if the state of the art is going to be good enough any time
soon, to grow animal hides at scale -- or even at all.

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

The bottom CD head plus the platform moves along one axis, the top CD head plus the inkjet cartridge moves along the second axis.

We haven't yet dealt with how to add a Z axis to this setup, but considering that the inkjet can spray over quite a distance, we should be able to just print several layers over each other without moving Z. There's plenty of interesting stuff to be done in thin layers...

The stepper motors driving the CD heads are only 20 steps/revolution. I've heard mythical stories of 200 steps/rev steppers in CD drives, but I've never seen them - maybe in DVD or BlueRay drives? The worm gear on the stepper has a pitch of 3 mm, so each full step moves the head by 150 micron. We should theoretically be able to improve that to <10 micron with 16x microstepping, but we haven't had a need for that yet (we'd also have to switch out the drivers to do microstepping). The 12 nozzles on the inkjet cartridge are 96 dpi, or 265 micrometers apart. Printing with ink, the individual dots are clearly distinguishable, so they should be well under 265 micron, but we haven't measured them yet - that's our real resolution limit at the moment, not so much the XY positioning.

Printing at 10 micron or somesuch sounds very appealing, but it's really a huge overkill for most applications. The number of cells per droplet will be stochastic anyway, so it's not as if you can put cells *exactly* where you want them. And dividing the diameter of the droplets by 10 just means that it'll take you 1000 times longer to print a given volume...

[Jose Gomez-Marquez]

Great stuff on the bioprinting Patrik. We have been wondering about the inkshield as an alternative to automatic pipettors. 

In reference to the medical devices as DIYBio. I am going to put a flag up and say YES. Why? Because it's a huge component of how DIY can affect health, which is a huge component of our underlying aspirations for DIYBio. My lab at MIT does DIY Medtech. That's all we do. That's what we promote and that's what we research. DIY Medtech is also going bound to be a huge source of bioinstrumentation that more biology minded DIYBio folks may find useful. Communities are fuzzy. They grow and expand and gain their own character and color. When they can't, they fork, they go away, or they become more interested in the definitions and not as much in the work. I find a lot of people at DIYBio very welcoming of DIY medical technology. 

[Michael Turner]

On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 7:31 PM, Jose Gomez-Marquez
<jose.gome...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Great stuff on the bioprinting Patrik. We have been wondering about the
> inkshield as an alternative to automatic pipettors.
>
> In reference to the medical devices as DIYBio. I am going to put a flag up
> and say YES.

[snip a collection of plausible relations but with no citation of
anybody's formal definition in a peer-reviewed source.]

This came up as a question for what should be included in the
Wikipedia articles. I'd like to be able to cite your e-mail to this
list as a reliable source, but Wikipedia guidelines and policies about
reliable sources just don't extend that far. Wikipedia isn't a place
to define terms. It's a place to describe what others have written
about, in sources that meet certain criteria.

Regards,
Michael Turner
Project Persephone
1-25-33 Takadanobaba
Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 169-0075
(+81) 90-5203-8682
tur...@projectpersephone.org
http://www.projectpersephone.org/

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward
together in the same direction." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry


>

> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/diybio/-/CvqoFpOMdEwJ.

[Jeswin]

On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 9:57 AM, Michael Turner
<michael.eu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 7:31 PM, Jose Gomez-Marquez
> <jose.gome...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> In reference to the medical devices as DIYBio. I am going to put a flag up
>> and say YES.
> [snip a collection of plausible relations but with no citation of
> anybody's formal definition in a peer-reviewed source.]
>
> This came up as a question for what should be included in the
> Wikipedia articles. I'd like to be able to cite your e-mail to this
> list as a reliable source, but Wikipedia guidelines and policies about
> reliable sources just don't extend that far. Wikipedia isn't a place
> to define terms. It's a place to describe what others have written
> about, in sources that meet certain criteria.
>

While I appreciate the hard work that you and other Wiki editors do,
does it really matter at this point to divide up the areas of DIYbio?
If an area is out there, i.e., something referenced in a legit
article, press release, etc., then it should be in Wikipedia. If not,
then wait till you can cite in Wikipedia.

Q: What does DIYbio do?
A: Find out whats been done are list it. Ideas are just brainstorming.
When something has been created, then we can say DIYbio has stepped
into that area.

Q: Where is DIYbio heading?
A: This is where you talk about things like printing prosthetic limbs, etc.

Thanks for working on the Wikipedia entry, Michael and all others

[Michael Turner]

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 12:26 AM, Jeswin <phill...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Q: Where is DIYbio heading?
> A: This is where you talk about things like printing prosthetic limbs, etc.

Directly implicit in any such Wikipedia article sectioning is the
assertion "DIYbio is heading toward prosthetic limbs, etc."

Can I find a statement like that in a "reliable source" as defined by Wikipedia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources

Note that "medical claims" involves yet more qualifications

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)

Printing of prosthetic limbs is a subject that might qualify for that
even-more-stringent special case:

Can YOU find any such "DIYbio is going toward <target x>" reference?
Please send it to me. I'll use it.

[Bryan Bishop]

On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 11:32 PM, Michael Turner
<michael.eu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Can YOU find any such "DIYbio is going toward <target x>" reference?
> Please send it to me. I'll use it.

yes, here you go:

http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/diybio/citations.txt
http://diyhpl.us/wiki/diybio/faq/news

--

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 11:40 PM, General Oya <gener...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I really would like to forward an initiative = Faux' Real to see if we can

> harness and mass produce ivory and endangered furs to destroy the lucrative\

Me too! I was just thinking earlier that it would be nice to 'take off
my hair' and 'put it back on later' (by swapping scalps, and the hair
keeps growing while in storage). Then I could have winter and summer
hair.
:)

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 11:49 PM, Michael Turner
<michael.eu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 12:40 PM, General Oya <gener...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I went to BUGGS community lab this saturday here in Baltimore and was
>> chatting with Tom about this technology. He and I both have been thinking
>> about the use of this on bone and possibly ivory.
>> I really would like to forward an initiative = Faux' Real to see if we can
>> harness and mass produce ivory and endangered furs to destroy the lucrative
>> trade in poaching that continues at an accelerated pace during these trying
>> global economic times.
>
> [snip]
>
> Especially good if you could clone out of the wild. That way, there's
> little or no basis for distinguishing between "fake" and "real"
> because they'd both be about as real as a DNA test could determine.

I think 'real' in the sense of Ivory or leather/fur is its durability
and aesthetic.

e.g. I don't buy fake leather jackets because they
don't smell as nice and seem like they would suck at abrasion
resistance (my only leather jacket is also my motorcycle jacket,
though I know there are probably stronger abrasion-resistant synthetic
jackets, they don't sell kevlar with the American Flag on the back at
my local second-hand store).

I do however prefer synthetic jackets for things like raincoats, or
when I'm rock climbing or backpacking.

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 12:32 AM, Michael Turner
<michael.eu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 12:26 AM, Jeswin <phill...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Q: Where is DIYbio heading?
>> A: This is where you talk about things like printing prosthetic limbs, etc.
>
> Directly implicit in any such Wikipedia article sectioning is the
> assertion "DIYbio is heading toward prosthetic limbs, etc."
>
> Can I find a statement like that in a "reliable source" as defined by Wikipedia?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources

according to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Self-published_sources_.28online_and_paper.29
"
Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an
established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the
relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party
publications.
"

I'd say 3d printing falls under the wikipedia guidelines for being in
an examples section, along with a lot of the other's we've listed in
this thread.
jmil (Jordan Miller) has published his sugar printing stuff in 3rd
party *expert* peer-reviewed journals, has been around the DIYbio
community for a while, and has given DIYbio updates on his project a
few times. He shows up in my email repo of DIYbio (which isn't as old
as the google group) starting on 7/8/11

[Michael Turner]

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 4:20 PM, Nathan McCorkle <nmz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 11:49 PM, Michael Turner
> <michael.eu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 12:40 PM, General Oya <gener...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I went to BUGGS community lab this saturday here in Baltimore and was
>>> chatting with Tom about this technology. He and I both have been thinking
>>> about the use of this on bone and possibly ivory.
>>> I really would like to forward an initiative = Faux' Real to see if we can
>>> harness and mass produce ivory and endangered furs to destroy the lucrative
>>> trade in poaching that continues at an accelerated pace during these trying
>>> global economic times.
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>> Especially good if you could clone out of the wild. That way, there's
>> little or no basis for distinguishing between "fake" and "real"
>> because they'd both be about as real as a DNA test could determine.
>
> I think 'real' in the sense of Ivory or leather/fur is its durability
> and aesthetic.

Not everybody is you, Nathan. The real problem here, ultimately, with
species being hunted to extinction is people who won't settle for
anything except from what's certifiably derived from a particular dead
animal. It's a status thing. Conspicuous consumption. Exclusivity,
rarity -- proof of having paid a high price. As a signal to others:
"You are lower than I am." They aren't even necessarily appreciative
of the objective qualities. In the case of aphrodisiacs made of rhino
horn, there actually aren't any -- except for some possible placebo
effect, I suppose.

But if there's actually no way to tell the difference, then there's no
way to credibly offer that from-a-real-dead-animal certification.
Except perhaps for the consumers to go out and kill the animal
themselves and monitor the process from raw ingredient to final
product, end-to-end. Chinese consumers of rhino-horn derivative are
not likely to go all the way to Africa (or even Sumatra) for the
privilege.

[Michael Turner]

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 4:53 PM, Nathan McCorkle <nmz...@gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]

> according to:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Self-published_sources_.28online_and_paper.29
> "
> Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an
> established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the
> relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party
> publications.
> "
>
> I'd say 3d printing falls under the wikipedia guidelines for being in
> an examples section, along with a lot of the other's we've listed in
> this thread.

I wasn't asking about 3d printing in general. I was asking about 3d
printing of components for medical implants, specifically. And I fail
to see how the specific case of 3D printing of sugars constitutes DIY.
That was big-budget university research, was it not? (Very much so:
see below.)

You keep stripping out parts of the context. The only pattern I see so
far: you do it when stripping it out would be convenient for your
highly inclusive "definition".

> jmil (Jordan Miller) has published his sugar printing stuff in 3rd
> party *expert* peer-reviewed journals, has been around the DIYbio
> community for a while, and has given DIYbio updates on his project a
> few times.

CECR doesn't (yet) have an obvious listing of the dollar value of
research grants,

http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cecr/research.html

nor does Jordan Miller's supervisor, Christopher Chen, put the budget
in any obvious place

http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~chenlab/

but in this case, with about a dozen co-authors on the paper you refer
to, and a full professor supervising the research at an Ivy League
university, it's safe to say that the project's budget was on the high
side of $200,000.

Please tell me: how does a team of a dozen people with a six-figure
research budget qualify as "DIY"?

> He shows up in my email repo of DIYbio (which isn't as old
> as the google group) starting on 7/8/11

You still haven't given me a citation. It has to be open enough to
refer to, on Wikipedia, in a way that others can find. And it has to
have Jordan Miller unambiguously categorizing that research as DIYbio.
(With him provisionally accepted as "an established expert" even
though he's a post-doc researcher -- ideally it comes from Prof.
Chen.)

Otherwise, where's the limit? Is it any topic people post about here
automatically "DIYbio"? People are posting daily here about very cheap
but powerful embedded-systems boards that run Linux. Does that ipso
facto make such boards "DIYbio"? I don't think so. What if Moore's Law
had stopped in 1985, and people had to make do with PC/ATs or the
original Macintosh, while the relevant biotech had (somehow) proceeded
at the pace seen since then? People would still be doing DIYbio. It
would be a little more expensive, that's all.

And why rely on a mailing list when there's already a peer-reviewed
publication to cite, if necessary?

Remember: the specific case was *metallic* joints that were
3-D-printed. As in the discussion here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:DIYbio

If somebody wants to put *DIYmed* on the map, I'm happy to support the
inclusion of such material. In a Wikipedia article entitled "DIYmed."
As soon as anyone is actually *doing* DIYmed -- which I doubt. (Unless
going to a bar to get a drink and calm down after a bad day
constitutes practicing medicine on oneself.)