Establishing a New Haven Community Bio Space - Equipment List

[J.R. Logan]

We have been very fortunate to get a state innovation grant approved to fund the establishment of a community/DIY bio space in our makerspace. Informed by the various online equipment lists and my own understanding from talking to bio space organizers at the Community Bio Summit I came up with a proposal for a proposal of $21,700 ($6,000 of Infrastructure, $2,000 of Program expense and $13,700 of Equipment). In the proposal I noted it as a minimum viable budget, and a more full featured lab would cost at another $20,000 or more. The funding committee not only approved the plan but asked to see the list of equipment we would acquire if we received the additional $20,000. 

To meet their request I have compiled a list of items and general expected expenses. The items on the list are representative and we will research the best we can get for the price as we order specific models. I know the specific expenses will work out somewhat differently but that is OK with this funding as long as the overall total equipment expense is close.

MakeHaven Community Bio Lab Upgrade Equipment Proposal

I would appreciate it if anyone with experience running a community bio lab would review and comment on my list and proposal. What are my blind spots on this? Anything really important I am missing? Are there certain items where I should buy the best we can afford? Others where it is wasteful to buy, as getting donations is common?  If you think it looks good, let me know. It will be helpful to tell the review committee I have validated my proposal with the wider community of bio space leaders.

J.R. Logan
Executive Director

MakeHaven

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[Dakota Hamill]

Can't figure out where you are in the US but that looks like a decent starting list.  Not sure if you've picked out final products but I'd invest in a larger autoclave, the Tuttenauers are tanks.  Disposal of waste (bulk liquid or lots of melted petri plates) with a small autoclave is a pain in the ass. A lot of local lab-resellers will gladly give you consumables for tax-write offs.  You may also be able to get some of their equipment that doesn't fetch high prices or takes up a lot of space on the cheap (probably free), like thermal cyclers, gel boxes, tables, etc.   They also are happy in my experience to donate things for tax write-offs that aren't worth their time trying to flip themselves. 

Growth media, plastics, and consumables can be more than used equipment sometimes.  Make use of asking for free samples and being a 501c3 if you are going that route. 

Looks like a solid list and plan, best of luck. 

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[Frank]

That sounds great.  I would add a centrifugal apheresis machine.  https://www.medicalexpo.com/medical-manufacturer/plasmapheresis-machine-15104.html

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

$20K is a real luxury, but please don't blow it all on buying brand new equipment if you can get functionally the same gear for as little as a tenth of the price second hand on eBay, CraigsList, or auction sites. 

- Definitely do yourself a favor and get a real biosafety cabinet instead of the laminar flow

- The incubator you have listed seems tiny. Get an undercounter one. You might need to store 50 or more plates if you want to run Agar Art workshops. Maybe get the tiny one as well, in case you need to incubate at two different temperatures - e.g. yeast vs E. coli

- No need for a plasmapheresis machine - you should not be working with blood in a BSL-1 lab. 

- That Formlabs printer is 1/3 of your entire budget - are you really, really sure you need an expensive high-end resin printer like this? As someone who helps run the bioprinter group at BioCurious, I wouldn't dream of getting this one, unless you knew *exactly* how you will be using it and why it needs to be this particular model, and you're planning for this to be a major feature of what you do at your community lab. If you just want a resin printer, there are several good ones under $1000 now.

- A large centrifuge like that can be quite dangerous. Also not really that useful unless you start growing large volumes of cells, but then you should invest in bioreactors as well. You will likely get a lot more mileage out of the microcentrifuge.

- Need a -20 lab freezer as well (NOT a kitchen freezer - don't want that auto-defrost feature). Undercounter fridge and freezer can typically be had second hand for $100-200 each.

 

Best of luck! And remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint...

Patrik

[Frank]

in layman's terms, would be great to have the means to harvest and prepare adipose derived stem cells for reinjection.   

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[Tom De Medts]

Hi JR,

I completely agree in principle with all of Patrik's comments.

I have a few more things to add based on my experience working in two very contrasting environments - 

PhD and postdoc research in tier 1 universities, versus setting up and working in my garage lab.

Here are my personal experiences:

1. You can buy items off of E-bay at a 10-50% discount compared to brand new items

2. The equipment you will need will depend on the list of experiments you wish to perform (I cannot see that description in your email or Google file)

3. The list of experiments in turn will depend on the 'learning goals' of your community lab  (I cannot see that description in your email or Google file)

4. The 'learning goals' in turn will depend on the target audience's intellectual capacity (HS vs. college vs DIYers Vs. pros), 

time investment by stakeholders (weekend vs evenings),  and your business model vis-a-vis funding - self-sufficient vs. grant-based being approximately on the opposite ends of this spectrum.  (I cannot see such details in your email or Google file)

5. If you can reduce capital expense, but still retain the same pot of gold, you would have more for running expenses

- and depending on the type of experiments, these can be non-trivial. This point has been made by others in other posts here as well,

and it is an oft under-appreciated aspect of any research.

6. How much of your lab will be community-based, and how much will be DIY-based? Allow me to explain.

If you go hardcore into DIY, you can build you own laminar flow - I built mine for < $600, and it has an adjustable flow rate of > 100fpm and is more that sufficient for BSL-1. But this will take time for procuring the right items, for the right price. SO it's a trade-off and for such DIY sub-projects to not end up being distractions, it would be best to source experienced personnel to help out. Alternatively, if folks in your own community can build a DIY laminar flow (as in this example), then you would start off with a sense of community and participation already, and perhaps folks in your neighborhood would be already invested?

7. Finally, pardon me for being so blunt in my assessment, this is by NO MEANS an attack on you - in fact, I appreciate that you reached out to this community for advice [ From looking you up. I suspect you may not a(n extensive) background in science ] - which means you are open-minded, hence this point - An important aspect of community/DIY is innovation - if one cannot be imaginative in reducing up front costs and time required for design, build and procurement of equipment, budgeting for consumables etc., I think there'd be very little hope that such a venture would stay afloat. Frugality without compromising on the quality of science is IMHO a large part of innovation. A lot of well-intentioned community labs and DIY projects fail because they do not factor in all of the moving parts...

If you want to discuss specifics, I can connect you to a colleague in my garage lab who can better share all the gory details of equipment choice, procurement, design/build etc. 

But it would help if you can provide some of the missing context (2,3,4,6 above), so our suggestions may be better tailored.

Good luck!

Tom

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