DIYbio

URL = http://www.diybio.org/

Description

"DIYbio is an organization for the ever expanding community of citizen scientists and DIY biological engineers that value openness & responsibility. DIYbio aims to be an "Institution for the Amateur" -- an umbrella organization that provides some of the same resources afforded by more traditional institutions like academia and industry, such as access to a community of experts, to technical literature and other resources, to responsible oversight for health and safety, and an interface between the community and the public at large." (http://www.diybio.org/)

Discussion

"DIYbio versus synthetic biology

The media attention surrounding DIYbio has served to brand the endeavor just as synthetic biology was branded. Both embrace the goals of making biology 'easy to engineer' and ensuring materials and know-how circulate in an 'open source' mode—“biology for the people” as the platitude has it. The association is not surprising or accidental. DIYbio and synthetic biology, after all, share institutional and personal connections. Leading research institutions, such as the National Science Foundation–funded Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center, of which three of us (P.R., G.B. and A.S.) are a part, have made these two goals central to their strategic plans. Additionally, leading figures in synthetic biology have informally served as impresarios to some in the biohacker movement, notably through their sponsorship and promotion of the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition, which in 2009 has drawn over 100 teams of undergraduate bioengineers from five continents. In the light of the growth of DIYbio and the publicity that it has generated and received, however, the directors of the iGEM competition have banned DIYbio teams from participating in the competition.

The connections and convergences can no doubt be overstated. Self-definitions vary, and not all synthetic biologists would define their field as fostering “mechanisms for amateurs to increase their knowledge and skills,” as a prominent DIYbio website (http://diybio.org/) puts it. Conversely, not all DIY biologists design “new biological parts, devices, and systems,” as synthetic biology has sometimes been defined (http://syntheticbiology.org/). Nevertheless, it's certainly fair to say that accessible, easy-to-engineer biology is becoming the proverbial name of the game. Those synthetic biologists and DIYbio practitioners who object to being grouped together need to speak up in their own name.

The good news is that open access biology, to the extent that it works, may help actualize the long-promised biotechnical future: growth of green industry, production of cheaper drugs, development of new biofuels and the like. The bad news, however, is that making biological engineering easier and available to many more players also makes it less predictable, raising the specter of unknown dangers." (http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v27/n12/full/nbt1209-1109.html)

More Information

Blog at http://blog.diybio.org/