Something is Rotten in Denmark

[djwr...@gmail.com]

VAGHURT - DIY Vagina Yoghurt - Check the event and sign-up http://biologigaragen.org/2015/124

Seems like you could easily culture a pathogen.  Michael Douglas would not approve. Anyone want to weigh in on the safety aspects?  Today is the day they were supposed to eat it.  I would urge you not to.

Dan

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Yes, this is definitely a really bad idea. Not that you couldn't do what they claim to be doing. But the way they're doing it isn't even close to safe. At least, it sounds like nobody is actually going to *eat* this vaghurt, since the program ends with "Visual inspection" and "Inactivating the biomaterials".

First of all, whenever you isolate an unknown organism from an environmental sample, you really should be doing that in a BioSafety Level 2 lab, because there is always some chance you'll be isolating (and greatly amplifying!) a pathogen instead. Check out the answer to my question to ask.diybio.org on this issue:

Under what conditions can I generate bacterial isolates from environmental samples in a BSL-1 environment?

Secondly, the fact that they're starting from a human sample increases the odds of isolating a pathogen by orders of magnitude. Sure, by culturing in milk they will be selecting for the more harmless lactobacilli. But they're only doing a single day of culturing, and they're not even picking colonies. So there's no chance in hell they'll get rid of anything that may be dangerous. Remember: one person's commensal bacteria is another's pathogens! Nice cup of Candida or STD yoghurt, anyone? 

And even if they were able to select a single Lactobacillus strain (which they can't - not with the procedure they described), that's still not a guarantee it would be harmless. We tend to equate Lactobacilli with yoghurt, cheese and other fermented dairy products, but there's plenty of pathogenic ones as well:

Pathogenic potential of lactobacilli.
Pathogenic relevance of Lactobacillus: a retrospective review of over 200 cases.

You want to do this safely? You do the isolation in a BSL-2 lab, or at least a biosafety cabinet. You isolate colonies and subculture a couple times until you're confident they're axenic. They you use 16S sequencing to figure out what you have, and whether it's closely related to any pathogens. Then you try it *yourself* first, before you start exposing anyone else.

Good thing they're not actually planning on eating this...

[Jakub Friedl]

First of all, whenever you isolate an unknown organism from an environmental sample, you really should be doing that in a BioSafety Level 2 lab...

On the other hand, fermenting grapes to make wine, or making sauerkraut (beware, wild lactobacilli!) is also culturing unknown organisms from environmental sample... Yes, using a sample from humans makes it orders of magnitude more dangerous, but still, I would be very surprised if something bad happened. Yoghurt is not a good environment for typical pathogens.

Still, of course, not lege artis.

Jakub Friedl

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[M Lo]

I am the person that organised the event. I put tons of work and it and frankly I am super dissapointed to be accused of such things that we never ever stated. What made you even think we "are supposed" to eat it? 

The vaghurt journey was a hard-working amazing project and we took all the measures to ensure the safety of the participants. Did you even see the inactivation of the biomaterials in the program? 

Anyway, if anyone has nice questions about the project, please ask. But do not accuse or make a fuss without proper prior informing. 

[M Lo]

I am the person that organised the event. We put tons of work into it and I am terribly disappointed that you make wrong assumptions and came with such accusations. When and how did you get to the conclusion that we would eat it? We never stated that. 

Please correct the post. I would really appreciate it. It feels really disappointing to assume that we are not scientific and we do not know the risks and we do not take the required measures. In the program it is stated that we will inactivate the bio materials. 

Anyway, if anyone is interested in our journey, we will definitely like to share it. It was an amazing project. 

On Tuesday, June 30, 2015 at 6:33:31 AM UTC+2, Roninlaw wrote:

[SC]

From the web page:

"We will start with opening the yoghurt, visually inspecting the product and deciding if the vaghurt qualifies for a smelling/tasting session. "

My God, what a horribly bad idea.   You do know other bacteria grow in vaginas, right?   You know that friendly and dangerous bacteria can be easily co-cultured, right?    What "visual inspection" criteria would you use to determine if the yogurt is safe to eat?

This is completely irresponsible. 

[Martin Malthe Borch]

Participating in this workshop was a really great and strong experience.

There where produced good yoghurt's that I would not be able to distinguish from yoghurt bought in a supermarket. But there where also some that turned out more to cheese or just smelled strange.

But standing in a crowd looking at these yoghurts, smelling and giving them names after their identity was really amazing.

Highlighting this human bacterial relation was very strong. I have worked in many labs and smelled many fermentations but it's the first time where, smelling a yoghurt has given me goosebumps all over the body.

It was an art workshop, not a scientific workshop with the aim of producing food. The aim as I see it, was to reflect on the bacteria that surrounds us, live on or inside us, and facilitate good discussions. 

The samples were coded, so that only the person giving the sample knew what yoghurt's were theirs,this was done in case that something unpleasant should be found. 

Could this workshop set-up be compared to the situation where you give your cat a big bowl of milk, it drinks some of it, but leave it for three days on your kitchen floor?

This is not illegal, but could be quite un-safe as well.

Best.

Martin

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Med venlig hilsen,            Martin Malthe Borch

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[Marc Juul]

On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 3:45 PM, M Lo <35.68n...@gmail.com> wrote:

I am the person that organised the event. We put tons of work into it and I am terribly disappointed that you make wrong assumptions and came with such accusations. When and how did you get to the conclusion that we would eat it? We never stated that. 

 

As someone else pointed out, your website indicated that you might taste the incubated product.
 

Please correct the post. I would really appreciate it. It feels really disappointing to assume that we are not scientific and we do not know the risks and we do not take the required measures. In the program it is stated that we will inactivate the bio materials. 

When it comes to assumptions around safety they should always err on the side of caution. Assuming that something is safe when there is little to no evidence would be irresponsible. The community has raised real concerns with your project and they have done so because of a lack of and (as we are learning from your emails) wrong information on your website. It is a lack of transparency/documentation of your safety considerations that has caused these concerns to be raised. People are making assumptions because you have not published adequate information about how you are conducting this experiment safely in an improvised laboratory environment. From the information available it appears that your work environment for this project was likely not BSL-2 nor BSL-1 compliant (though that could very well be wrong). Community trust can be earned through transparency and reputation. You are opting to remain anonymous which makes documentation even more important.

I'm personally very excited to see more biohacking projects like this and don't want to discourage anyone from working on them, and I really do understand the need for some to remain anonymous, but we are all trying to hold each-other accountable when it comes to safe laboratory practices, so it'd be really great if there were just a few sentences to the effect that trained individuals are leading the work, that safety training for all individuals will be / was provided, that an appropriate BSL 1 or 2 space was improvised for the project, and that of course none of the materials were ever to be ingested. It doesn't take much, just a bit of clear communication around safety and a point of contact for biosafety inquiries.

That being said the tone of some other folk on this thread has been rather abrasive and unproductive as well. Let's have less of that and more actual reaching out to help. I realize I should have forwarded this thread to the biologigaragen contact email address when I saw it instead of assuming that the organizers monitor the diybio mailing list.

 

Here's a real question to which I do not have the answer (but probably you do!): I know that C. Botulinum can grow in milk cultures, and produce botulinum neurotoxin, but it is inactivated by boiling for 10 minutes. Are there any other dangerous compounds that could realistically be produced by incubating an unknown (dairy) culture and which would not be reliably destroyed/inactivated by autoclave? I'm thinking yes (methanol comes to mind but that would evaporate and hopefully not re-condense into the sample upon cooling), so how would you inactivate your incubated product in a way that was safe to taste? Or is that simply not possible without knowledge of the incubated strains?

Good luck with future experiments!

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marc/juul