Who makes up DIYbio and what are our goals?
J. S. John
who makes it up. So I think it's time for people to speak up about
what they're doing on the list and what they're getting from it. Phil
is correct when he says that there are only a couple people actively.
We have 1514 registered users on the mailing list. There's probably
about less than 50 (I think I might be very liberal with the amount)
active participants in the group or ~3%.
From what I have learned, those who make up the group are:
-Students
-Garage biologists, Also those who have more dedicated workshops,
Hackerspace members
-Journalists
-Artists (today's artists aren't the paint&easel types from what I see online)
-Scientists with established labs
Now, I speculate that there are curious followers of MAKE magazine ,
government folks, entrepreneurs. That's all I can remember now.
So tell us who you are and what you get out of being here. What do you
learn and what do you want to learn?
Thanks
Nathan McCorkle
I'm a student, I've got garage, kitchen, and enclosed-porch labs (all
with differing purposes)... I also have access and am part of several
academic and professional research groups... I have even peer-reviewed
a biotech journal article recently.
In my spare time I'm working on a dual-protein expression vector for a
GRAS (generally recognized as safe) yeast... I've been working on a
system to quickly fab microfluidic circuits for about a year now, with
slow progress on both of these fronts. At work I work with a team
building biomedical instruments, one of which is a collaboration with
academics from my alma mater. At school I've been reading a lot on
prions in yeast, and how to tell if they are present in a culture
using direct techniques (as opposed to a genetic reporter system).
>
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Nathan McCorkle
Rochester Institute of Technology
College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics
Nathan McCorkle
>> learn and what do you want to learn?
>>
>> Thanks
>
> I'm a student, I've got garage, kitchen, and enclosed-porch labs (all
> with differing purposes)... I also have access and am part of several
> academic and professional research groups... I have even peer-reviewed
> a biotech journal article recently.
>
> In my spare time I'm working on a dual-protein expression vector for a
> GRAS (generally recognized as safe) yeast... I've been working on a
> system to quickly fab microfluidic circuits for about a year now, with
> slow progress on both of these fronts. At work I work with a team
> building biomedical instruments, one of which is a collaboration with
> academics from my alma mater. At school I've been reading a lot on
> prions in yeast, and how to tell if they are present in a culture
> using direct techniques (as opposed to a genetic reporter system).
>
I should add that I feel that my whole life is DIY, cause no one else
is gonna do it for me... when I got interested in algae as biofuel,
and was already fermenting mead and kefir, and growing vegetables in
the summertime... I decided that I wanted to go to school to learn
more in-depth... college is like long summer-camp for me. (except when
I remember the godawful loans I'll have to start repaying if I can't
defer them longer with a PhD program!)
J. S. John
questions. I would like to address this question to those who don't
regularly post. I'm asking for people who have made only a handful of
posts or none at all, the 97% of the people who make up the list.
Thanks
Dennis Jones
Recently I have been refocusing my attention on business and finance because the field caters to my abilities in a more reasonable fashion and have developed a stronger desire to develop fiscally. But I still enjoy reading every post. The work entertained throughout this forum is inspiring and I hope to continue to observe progress in this and many fields.
I'm mostly just going to observe. I don't feel I have much to contribute to the actual work of many here, but I do have to say that this healthy dialogs keeps me on my toes. I'm always learning something new.
Thanks,
Dennis
J. S. John
> My name is Dennis. I'm just a normal guy from Colorado, but just moved to Fresno, CA. Have always enjoyed biology, physics, chemistry; I guess I just enjoy science in general, and I love learning. I have no degree and only some college education. I'm looking to go back to school, and for the last few years I have done some soul searching and throughout that process I discovered 'synthetic biology' and was excited to learn as much as I could. So I joined this list eager to learn.
> Recently I have been refocusing my attention on business and finance because the field caters to my abilities in a more reasonable fashion and have developed a stronger desire to develop fiscally. But I still enjoy reading every post. The work entertained throughout this forum is inspiring and I hope to continue to observe progress in this and many fields.
> I'm mostly just going to observe. I don't feel I have much to contribute to the actual work of many here, but I do have to say that this healthy dialogs keeps me on my toes. I'm always learning something new.
> Thanks,
> Dennis
Thank you very much, Dennis. It's great to hear from you. I hope that
people like you are inspiring the younger generation to be more
involved and interested in science and math. Not just forcing all
that stuff but teaching it as an art. Well, that's a discussion for
another day.
Okay people, speak up and let us know more about you, your interests,
and how we can make DIYbio better. Thanks
Arthur Kuan
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Cheers,
Eric
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J. S. John
of the general make-up of the community. This will also help in
organizing meetings, workshops, and lectures.
sgt york
I'm a somewhat established scientist in a US university lab. Got my
doctorate in biochem 4 years ago. I don't do a lot of DIYBio except
little demonstration things for my kids; I get plenty of the non-DIY
kind in my day job.
What do I get from the group? I get to see innovation. Necessity is
the mother of invention, and y'all need to come up with novels ways to
do things while paying strict attention to cost. That's good, and it
helps me think things through sometimes.
What do I want to give the group? I would like to think I can come in
from time to time and give the "real scientist" perspective, and help
people out with techniques and protocols when I can.
flashton
I'm a PhD student from London, working on proteomics and next gen
sequencing . i'm very interested in what 'normal' people could do with
the data available in things like the NCBI sequence read archive. im
not sure people realise how much data anyone with an internet
conection has access to. obviously its not easy to manipulate the data
with no backround in the subject but im interested in helping people
learn about this, as well as standard molecular biology and
microbiology.
im just starting to get involved in the london hackspace, hopefully
with a view to setting up some sort of diybio group.
anyone in london interested in this kind of thing, get in touch.
phil
(not that nutjob from Biogenics)
Bryan Bishop
> im just starting to get involved in the london hackspace, hopefully
> with a view to setting up some sort of diybio group.
you should check out:
http://groups.google.com/group/diybio-london
John Griessen
> I think it's time for people to speak up about
> what they're doing on the list and what they're getting from it.
I'm an EE experienced with power designs, mixed signal processing boards and chips,
infrared detectors, laser diodes, mechanical design, manufacturing. Also a sculptor
-- alloyed and poured my own bronze castings from pure scrap metal. Have a circuit
lab, small general workshop, stored machines for a metal shop,
member of a fab lab starting in Austin TX. Was associated with a
hackerspace in Austin TX, but did not join after seeing the goals of 85% of them were
toy creation and entertainment.
I am developing two product lines to manufacture to do with CNC machined and
3DP --> molded parts plus circuits. Bryan Bishop and I might collaborate on
glass autoclavable microfluidics -- same town, same belief it is feasible and
a good niche market exists, just researching it so far.
My goals talking on this list are to connect with like minded, find collaborators
on projects that are aligned with the above business goals and preserve collaborators rights
to use our work with copyleft and open hardware licenses, and by understanding patents
already in force and avoiding them, and big mainstream market forces that would blow us away.
I've figured out a few simple lab tools to develop, and that microfluidics are something I can
do that has value by discussions here.
Some day, I can see using familiarity with diybio, even though I lack the foundations to be
making many discoveries, to develop products like self-growing building and product materials,
or whatever comes up... I'm a good observer and experiment instrumentation designer.
John Griessen
Austin Texas
Derek
I'm primarily a computer scientist. I worked at the evil empire for
about 10 years, primarily working on speech recognition. Part of my
time was also on the Windows team working on system administration
tools. In other computing lives I worked in biostatistics at MD
Anderson Cancer Center and for a couple years at Compaq.
I started getting the biology bug a few years ago and when I left
Microsoft I came back to Canada to UVic and took a bunch of biology
courses. I also started an iGEM team there. We had a decently
successful first year, but this year we ended up withdrawing from the
competition due to results that just wouldn't go our way. (Ostensibly,
actually the issue was more organizational. I was down in California
at Singularity University for the summer and sadly the team lost some
of its cohesion.)
I've just started a hackerspace in Victoria, BC (http://
www.makerspace.ca) I do a bunch of woodworking and am just getting
into metalworking. I fell in love with a laser cutter over the summer,
so one of those must be built or bought one of these days soon. I
built a makerbot last year as well, so I guess computer controlled
manufacturing is a bit of an interest...
My home lab activities these days consist mostly of environmental
stuff - monitoring coliforms in the irrigation pond next to my house,
mold identification and control, pesticide measurement, etc. I'm also
a brewer and cheesemaker, so I guess that counts as home biology :-) I
just found a local source of goat's milk, so I predict my cheese
getting much better soon!
Professionally, I'm back at school getting my PhD. In computer
science, but with some biology connection - my thesis topic is on the
visualization of cancer genomic data. There are much greater genetic
changes in cancers than anyone realized until recently. If you
sequence a tumor you might find thousands of distinct genetic
variants. Visualizing what is going on (because the mutations are not
uniform across the genome) and what pathways are most effected has
profound impacts on individualized cancer treatments.
--Derk Jacoby
Cathal Garvey
Hey Phil,
I'm not from London but I'm hoping to collaborate with you guys on some fun projects when I/ye/we get going in earnest! :) Perhaps we'll meet at UK makerfaire. I'm planning to chair a table again with Brian Dagger and maybe run a workshop this year.
I'm eager to hear from more UK and especially IE people on the list! Please, any other Irish folk out there? Even for an off list reply? :)
On 5 Nov 2010 15:39, "flashton" <flas...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I'm a PhD student from London, working on proteomics and next gen
sequencing . i'm very interested in what 'normal' people could do with
the data available in things like the NCBI sequence read archive. im
not sure people realise how much data anyone with an internet
conection has access to. obviously its not easy to manipulate the data
with no backround in the subject but im interested in helping people
learn about this, as well as standard molecular biology and
microbiology.
im just starting to get involved in the london hackspace, hopefully
with a view to setting up some sort of diybio group.
anyone in london interested in this kind of thing, get in touch.
phil
(not that nutjob from Biogenics)
On Nov 5, 1:58 am, "J. S. John" <phillyj...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Phil of BC Biogenics posed a couple questions about what DIYbio is and
> who makes it up. So I thi...
Nib
my Name is Rüdiger, I am from Freiburg in Germany and I am a student
of Diplom Biology (similar to Master) at the Uni here.
I follow the mailing list for about half a year now, because I like
the idea of a low budget research.
So far I did not set up my own lab, since law restriction here are
tight and I am not 100% sure how far I am allowed to go legally.
Last year I was in the Freiburg iGEM team and I might join the next
years team again.
My plan is to set up a biotech company in within the next 3 years,
so it is good to learn about cheap workarounds, especially if you only
have a
small start up business. Hopefully there will be sth. like
kickstarter.com in europe soon.
I further have good connections to some labs in the university.
If there are more people from my region following the discussion,
please get in touch.
Best, Rüdiger
On 5 Nov., 18:24, Cathal Garvey <cathalgar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey Phil,
> I'm not from London but I'm hoping to collaborate with you guys on some fun
> projects when I/ye/we get going in earnest! :) Perhaps we'll meet at UK
> makerfaire. I'm planning to chair a table again with Brian Dagger and maybe
> run a workshop this year.
>
> I'm eager to hear from more UK and especially IE people on the list! Please,
> any other Irish folk out there? Even for an off list reply? :)
>
Cathal Garvey
Cool stuff Rüdiger, always nice to hear from another EU person!
Have you checked out indiegogo.com as an EU friendly kickstarter alternative? Not exactly the same but very promising. I hope to start something there soon.
More EU friends!
On 6 Nov 2010 12:23, "Nib" <ruedi...@googlemail.com> wrote:
Hey,
my Name is Rüdiger, I am from Freiburg in Germany and I am a student
of Diplom Biology (similar to Master) at the Uni here.
I follow the mailing list for about half a year now, because I like
the idea of a low budget research.
So far I did not set up my own lab, since law restriction here are
tight and I am not 100% sure how far I am allowed to go legally.
Last year I was in the Freiburg iGEM team and I might join the next
years team again.
My plan is to set up a biotech company in within the next 3 years,
so it is good to learn about cheap workarounds, especially if you only
have a
small start up business. Hopefully there will be sth. like
kickstarter.com in europe soon.
I further have good connections to some labs in the university.
If there are more people from my region following the discussion,
please get in touch.
Best, Rüdiger
On 5 Nov., 18:24, Cathal Garvey <cathalgar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey Phil,
> I'm not from London ...
> On 5 Nov 2010 15:39, "flashton" <flash...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm a PhD student from...
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group.
To pos...
Inventoriffic
disciplines. I'm not much of a publicist, so no blog etc, but almost
every week I'm inventing something new be it new software, hardware or
combinations. I love the process of inventing, it's what gets me up in
the morning. I lurk daily, and I'm interested in nearly everything
that goes on in the list. I find your work inspirational.
On Nov 7, 1:40 am, Cathal Garvey <cathalgar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Cool stuff Rüdiger, always nice to hear from another EU person!
>
> Have you checked out indiegogo.com as an EU friendly kickstarter
> alternative? Not exactly the same but very promising. I hope to start
> something there soon.
>
> More EU friends!
>
ByoWired
On Nov 4, 8:58 pm, "J. S. John" <phillyj...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ... I think it's time for people to speak up about
devices. I like the DIY mindset because it imposes a major
evolutionary pressure on the design constraints. It might be "easy"
to solve a problem when you've got $100,000 to do so, but by forcing
people to work with only a tiny fraction of money like that
establishes the kind of necessity that makes of all of us Mothers of
Invention.
On the other hand, I'm a bit freaked out by the idea that people are
doing actual hard core genetic mods, mutagenesis, etc. in their
apartments, etc. While I applaud people who are establishing
hackerspaces and getting educated on safety, regulations, zoning,
proper waste disposal, etc. and while I applaud the idea of citizen
science in general, I think the idea of somebody working with
hazardous chemicals, organisms, etc. in a setting like an apartment is
just one of those Radioactive Boy Scout scenarios waiting to happen.
Even in well equipped labs populated by highly trained personnel,
accidents happen and people get poisoned, infected, electrocuted, and
slip on banana peels. So although I'm happy that people are
interested in science and so forth, I sure as hell wouldn't want to
live in the same building with some of you guys. :)
cameron
few weeks ago. I haven't worked for a couple years, as I've been
taking some time to seek out new interests. As one who got involved
in the computer revolution early, I'm fascinated by the revolution
occurring in bioengineering. Though, I've followed basic developments
in genetics over the last 10 years, I haven't dived in yet. I think
it's now time! I loved Sean Carroll's book Endless Forms Most
Beautiful and enjoyed Carlson's Biology is Technology. I'm now quite
engaged with the topic. I've thought about going back to univ to study
molecular biology, but seems quite a challenge at my age. So, am
currently on a self-study path. We'll see where it takes me. I'm an
entrepreneurial spirit with lots of fresh ideas and good problem
solving skills seeking a new venture. I've got a lot of work to do to
catch up, but this list will help me out tremendously, which is why
I've been reading it daily. Not much to contribute yet, but hopefully
I can in the future. These kinds of collaborations are great. Love
OpenPCR as well. Just like OpenEEG, which I've been toying with
recently. In general, my interests are neuroscience, philosophy of
mind, medicinal plants and genetics. Thanks for everyone's
contributions.
Tristan Eversole
I don't post very often for several reasons: 1) I suspect (correctly, it seems) that few people on this list have any interest in ecology, evolution, developmental biology, conservation, or organismal biology generally; 2) I'm too broke to do much of anything, lab-wise; 3) I'm very scatterbrained; and 4) I get nervous when addressing lots of people I don't know, especially via the internet.
At the moment, I'm interested in creating an Anki deck for the identification of molluscs down to family, which is something I can do without any money. However, I've finally found culturing methods for Trichoplax adhaerens(*), the simplest known metazoan, and would really like to try them out. T. adhaerens is an odd critter with its own phylum-- Placozoa-- and only 4 cell types, and very little is currently known about it. At one point, it was thought to resemble the basal metazoan, but was later described as a very weird derived cnidarian. We have a draft genome sequence now, and it's interesting to note that they don't appear to have any microRNAs, as these have been thought to be major drivers of animal evolution(**). I'm also slavering over the OpenPCR kit, but I don't have a clue how I'll manage to scrape together $512. That's an awful lot of pet-sitting, so to speak.
I'm interested in DIYBio because I believe that cheap molecular biology has enormous potential for field biology and, in a more speculative vein, evolutionary biology. The protocols for molecular ecology, taxonomic barcoding, and even phylogenetic analysis are much simpler than those required for synthetic biology, and the software for doing these things (HyPhy, Mesquite, PAML, PhyML, BEAST, MrBayes, Arelquin, etc.) is often freely available and sometimes open source. On a more personal level, I refuse to give up my goal of doing basic research, even if I ultimately fail to get into academia.
--T. E.
*Gleaned from here: http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag//artoct98/tricho.html
**As reported here: Grimson et al. Early origins and evolution of microRNAs and Piwi-interacting RNAs in animals. Nature (2008) vol. 455 (7217) pp. 1193-7
> Our study of Trichoplax small RNAs failed to find miRNAs, despite acquiring many more reads than required to identify miRNAs in all other animals and plants examined (Supplementary Figs 2 and 3). Thus, despite the formal possibility that Trichoplax miRNAs are expressed at levels so low that we failed to detect them, we favour the hypothesis that all miRNA genes have been lost in this lineage.
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group.
ken k
this vast field. I'm a freshman going for biomedical engineering with
a strong intent to contribute, as much as i can, to the crucial
"cheapify-the-equipment" step of democratizing science :)
Cathal Garvey
Man, that's awesome! I'm over here in Cork and I'll be getting an OpenPCR, you can send me samples for barcoding if you like, once I figure it out?
I admire your tenacity. Science is a pursuit of the curious, not the endowed. If you want to do research in ecology (a neglected and increasingly vital field!), go do it! :D
Sent from my Android.
On 12 Nov 2010 01:09, "Tristan Eversole" <custome...@trioptimum.com> wrote:
I'm a student with a BA in Biology who recently failed to complete an MRes program in parasitology at the University of Nottingham. I'm currently broke, unemployed, and quite possibly unemployable. I'm taking classes at San José State University and hoping to somehow get back into graduate school, but I'm also worried that mental health issues would prevent me from doing well there, as they did at Nottingham. (To be fair, the MRes program did not seem to be particularly well run either.) I am primarily interested in basic research in ecology and evolution, particularly the evolutionary developmental biology of invertebrates. (I was greatly intrigued by Robert Poulin's remark, in "Evolutionary Ecology of Parasites", that the most important level of selection for parasites may be the parasite life cycle.)
I don't post very often for several reasons: 1) I suspect (correctly, it seems) that few people on this list have any interest in ecology, evolution, developmental biology, conservation, or organismal biology generally; 2) I'm too broke to do much of anything, lab-wise; 3) I'm very scatterbrained; and 4) I get nervous when addressing lots of people I don't know, especially via the internet.
At the moment, I'm interested in creating an Anki deck for the identification of molluscs down to family, which is something I can do without any money. However, I've finally found culturing methods for Trichoplax adhaerens(*), the simplest known metazoan, and would really like to try them out. T. adhaerens is an odd critter with its own phylum-- Placozoa-- and only 4 cell types, and very little is currently known about it. At one point, it was thought to resemble the basal metazoan, but was later described as a very weird derived cnidarian. We have a draft genome sequence now, and it's interesting to note that they don't appear to have any microRNAs, as these have been thought to be major drivers of animal evolution(**). I'm also slavering over the OpenPCR kit, but I don't have a clue how I'll manage to scrape together $512. That's an awful lot of pet-sitting, so to speak.
I'm interested in DIYBio because I believe that cheap molecular biology has enormous potential for field biology and, in a more speculative vein, evolutionary biology. The protocols for molecular ecology, taxonomic barcoding, and even phylogenetic analysis are much simpler than those required for synthetic biology, and the software for doing these things (HyPhy, Mesquite, PAML, PhyML, BEAST, MrBayes, Arelquin, etc.) is often freely available and sometimes open source. On a more personal level, I refuse to give up my goal of doing basic research, even if I ultimately fail to get into academia.
--T. E.
*Gleaned from here: http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag//artoct98/tricho.html
**As reported here: Grimson et al. Early origins and evolution of microRNAs and Piwi-interacting RNAs in animals. Nature (2008) vol. 455 (7217) pp. 1193-7
> Our study of Trichoplax small RNAs failed to find miRNAs, despite acquiring many more reads than required to identify miRNAs in all other animals and plants examined (Supplementary Figs 2 and 3). Thus, despite the formal possibility that Trichoplax miRNAs are expressed at levels so low that we failed to detect them, we favour the hypothesis that all miRNA genes have been lost in this lineage.
On Nov 4, 2010, at 6:58 PM, J. S. John wrote:
> Phil of BC Biogenics posed a couple questions abou...
Meredith L. Patterson
<custome...@trioptimum.com> wrote:
> At the moment, I'm interested in creating an Anki deck for the identification of molluscs down to family, which is something I can do without any money.
Please let us know when this is finished! I've been using Anki to help
me learn Dutch, and I hadn't even thought about using it for taxonomy.
Cheers,
--mlp
Tristan Eversole
....I'd like to clarify my earlier comment to the effect that few people on the list are interested in organismal biology: I didn't mean it as a criticism; I just don't want to clutter up the list by writing on topics nobody cares about.
Tristan Eversole
I'm afraid that I'm no longer in Nottingham-- I was there for a year and a half (I got a visa extension), but had to return to the US in late 2009. I'm presently in California.
In terms of ecology, I'd initially been thinking about estimating gene flow between bedbug populations in the US, to get at the potential spread of insecticide resistance. However, this idea was obvious enough for someone else to have sorta done it already--
> Mitochondrial and Ribosomal Internal Transcribed Spacer 1 Diversity of Cimex lectularius (Hemiptera: Cimicidae)
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1603/0022-2585%282008%2945%5B229%3AMARITS%5D2.0.CO%3B2
This is the general type of thing I'm interested in trying out, but it'll probably be some time before I can be sending out (or accepting) samples.