Starting a DIYBio lab

[James Edwards]

hello all

Just discovered this community through the BioCurious DIYBio Lab. I'm currently in talks with a variety of stakeholders about starting a DIYBio lab at an innovation space affiliated with a local university. I've had contact with a business incubator who indicated they could be willing to offer support or resources to help build the Bio Lab, but they requested that I contact other similar initiatives elsewhere around the world and that I ask some questions related to measuring the impact of the space. 

Could anyone in the community help me with this

What numbers typically use the community DIYBio Labs that you're involved with?

What's the typical mix of people who use it? Are people typically use the Lab professional scientists? Hobbyists? Novices? Science students? Artists? Tinkerers? 

Is there perceivable value generated by opening up a bio lab to a diverse, interdisciplinary group of people who specialize in different fields and domains? 

Have there been commercial spinoffs that have come out of collaborations in the DIYBio Labs?

Do people at the Lab contribute to participatory science projects or open access science publications? 

[Elisabeth Steel]

Hello James!

Happy that you found this group, I also landed here via BioCurious DIYBio Lab (website).

Great to hear that you have champions for your project, and that they advised you on the pertinent questions to ask to achieve sustainability!

I think the answer to your questions are related to one main factor: your target audience and their interests.

The following info I am providing are my opinions based on my experience of starting a space: 

• It is fundamental to undergo customer discovery before embarking on the tangible aspects of the lab (i.e. equipment/supplies acquisition and lab design)
  

• This will be dependent on your geographical location
  
• being associated with a University is a positive in that you may have access to science students and professional scientists. Leveraging their skills and experience could help draw in and maintain hobbyists and tinkerers who need technical support
  
• being associated with a University (whether officially or unofficially) may also be a negative because those who have the skills/experience may have much less time to commit to the community space due to their responsibilities for school/profession
• Survey what type of business activities and academic activities surrounding your geographical location of your space; what are their strengths? what are their needs? 
• If you understand their challenges, then you can initially tailor a part of your space to help those sectors overcome their challenges for a fee
• Survey the hobbyists/tinkerers/artists and see the type of activities and access to equipment/supplies they would be motivated to use

• Perceivable value in a bio lab open to a diverse, interdisciplinary group?
• My opinion: Always yes! Does this come with challenges? Of course. However, the world's biggest problems require multi-disciplinary teams developing solutions that a homogeneous-knowledge base wouldn't generate
• Commercial spinoffs?
• I know that there are commercial spinoffs that came out of open software/hardware projects that were developed within the university space
• My own interest in starting a DIYBIO space is that I and my friends have some great ideas, but they are not "fund-able" by government agencies in the academic setting. There is a ton of tech and software (and other stuff) that could be pursued if inventors could tinker around in their spare time developing their idea.
• In order to achieve commercial spinoff success, you know what you would need? ... The resources the business incubator sounds like they could provide! That is a critical resource if fostering successful commercial spinoffs is your goal.
• Goals: 
• What is your mission for your DIYBio lab? What motivates you? What motivates your stakeholders providing support? 
• There are bound to be differences of opinion, philosophies, and goals in supporting an initiative like this. If it was easy, there would be one on every corner ;)
• If one of your goals is for the lab to contribute to participatory science projects and/or open access science publications, then you can foster an environment within the lab to achieve that. I just suggest a project manager of some sort who can help guide groups/projects in that direction.

My last piece of advice is to find 2-3 team members that have 10-15 hours per week to dedicate to your initiative. I have the great fortune of having access to a space and funding from the major stakeholder to get the lab I am involved with off the ground, but I have next to no time to dedicate to it, and it hurts my soul. If I had even just one other person who was reliable, we could make must faster strides with the space so that the space could reach the impact I think it could...

which leads me to my last question for you, where are you located? ;)

[James Edwards]

Hello Elisabeth,

Thanks for offering such a detailed and thoughtful response to my questions.

The feedback and suggestions will be really valuable and I'll pass it onto my contact at the Business Accelerator. 

I'm based in New Zealand and I'm working with universities in my country's two largest cities who each support innovation spaces for their students and local hobbyists. 

I'm actually working on a commercial project at the moment that exploits the opportunities offered by biological processes and organisms to transform agricultural waste into valuable products in an industrial context. I just see the tremendous potential provided by the natural world to inspire product design, transform industrial processes, create novel materials, and other biologically derived products. I see that providing spaces like DIYBio Labs will open up access to tools and equipment that have been only available to biotech companies and public research bodies, like universities and government research institutes. This affords the potential for hobbyists and tinkers the opportunity to collaborate and benefit from multidisciplinary cooperation between people with skills from a wide array of disciplines that may not be possible in traditional settings because of rivalries between the different scientific fields.and competition for resources and funding. Not to mention the reluctance of researchers to share knowledge and credit for discoveries and commercialization of their research.

[Cory Geesaman]

As an additional question: how many people are typically active at a time in a DIYBio lab?  I'm curious about the space requirements - i.e. if you have a rather small lab big enough for 2-4 people to work in at a time how many could you expect to actually have in your local group given people's schedules will likely not overlap all that much.

On Tuesday, August 29, 2017 at 11:38:47 PM UTC-4, James Edwards wrote:

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

I remember dimly there has been a group in NZ years ago?