Meet the competition: the $9999 biotech lab for ~40 people in a box.

[matt harbowy]

http://www.edvotek.com/5068?category=1817

 

Thought this might be interesting alternative to the scrounging/DIY for equipment done by most people, including me.

 

Factoring time and effort, there's always going to be stiff competition between "new" and "DIY". The $649 PCR kit (e.g. http://openpcr.org/ ) has to be at least as efficient as startup kits like this in order to grab mind share. The fact that OpenPCR was not in common (ie., any) use at BioCurious for the 6 or so months I was there (and that was the home base of OpenPCR) is a big warning light to me. Hacking something that works is great: hacking something that lasts for years is another. It is important to me that sufficient craftsmanship is evident that anything built will outlast its usefulness and be something worth recycling or subsequently hacking. The Edvocycler is $1799, ramps three times faster (3c/sec, vs 1c/sec) and requires no assembly. My metric for DIY is that it has to be comparable and 10x cheper, which puts the maximum i'm willing to spend on a PCR "kit" at ~$200. (I recently picked up a used Robocycler for $200, for example- so my price point is still shrinking). If you're going to supply into a lab, some of the cost has to account for what happens when stuff breaks.

 

Of course, with the Edvocycler, you don't have the fun of tearing your hair out debugging your bad soldering connection, or idly musing about the aftereffect of its last use in the isotopes or Ebola lab. 

 

Anyone have any experience with the pieces/parts in this kit?

 

The "simulated qPCR" protocol looks like it would make a nice demo: http://www.edvotek.com/370?category=1795 (ZOMG!!! EtBr!!! in the handz of kidz!!! :)

 

-matt

 

 

[Cory Tobin]

> Anyone have any experience with the pieces/parts in this kit?

I've used their horizontal gel box, pipettes, vortexer,
mini-centrifuges, and their handheld UV lights.

The gel boxes are perfectly fine. They don't leak and the electrodes
are made of platinum. The gel molding system is kind of strange.
There are rubber things that stick on the ends of the gel tray which I
guess are better than nothing. And the combs provided only allow for
one size well. If you want options in terms of gel size, gel
thickness, well size you are out of luck. If you need more options
then you will need to make your own tray/combs.

The pipettes are cheap and will probably break after moderate use.
They are of the older "Finnpipette" design. I've never tested them
for accuracy. If you need pipettes on a tight budget either get used
Gilson Pipetmans from ebay or go for the Hauwei (spelling?) Pipeteman
knockoffs which I have found to be just as good as the Gilsons. They
are both very durable and accurate.

The vortexer is just a re-branded VWR machine and works fine. Or
maybe VWRs are re-branded Edvotek machines? Either way they look,
feel, and work just the same.

The mini centrifuges are useful for getting liquid to the bottom of
your tube but will not replace a proper microfuge. They just don't
have high enough RCF to be of much use for minipreps or whatever. But
given that these were not designed to replace microfuges, I can't
discredit them. They are perfectly good at what they were built to
do.

The handheld UV wands are kind of useless. They are not very bright
and don't illuminate the gel evenly. If you need to take pictures of
your gel you will need to use a transilluminator. It looks like this
kit also has a proper transilluminator and camera system but I have
never used it.

Summary: overall, considering only the components I have used, I give
it 2/4 stars. You might be better off buying the pieces separately so
you can pick and choose where to favor cheapness and where to favor
quality.

Even shorter summary: Good: gel boxes, mini centrifuge, vortexer.
Bad: pipettes, UV wands.

-cory

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 3:43 PM, matt harbowy <hberg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.edvotek.com/5068?category=1817

Pfft, for $10k it's no lab-in-a-box... /maybe/ I'd consider that title
if it came with a laminar or at least positive pressure sterile air
hood.

[matt harbowy]

You're expected to cut holes in the big box it comes in and use that as the hood, so that it turns into a $9999 DIY kit. Fan not included. :p

-matt

[Katherine Gordon]

Is it even possible to do  stem cell induction without fancy equipment? I wanted to practice changing skin cells into the Induced  (threw specific growth media in vitro) morula stage then coaxing that into a heart muscle cell to watch it beat....Is anyone out there doing such hi fidelity work in their diy labs?

On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 1:04 PM, matt harbowy <hberg...@gmail.com> wrote:

You're expected to cut holes in the big box it comes in and use that as the hood, so that it turns into a $9999 DIY kit. Fan not included.  :p

-matt

--
-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups DIYbio group. To post to this group, send email to diy...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to diybio+un...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/diybio?hl=en
Learn more at www.diybio.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to diybio+un...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to diy...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/diybio.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diybio/e66593f2-c15a-41d0-9b7b-1d9758e4f69e%40googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

[CodonAUG]

Avoid using human adult cells if you can.  Mouse cells are easier and more hardy for this purpose and less likely to invoke the ire of society.