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A small group of local biotech enthusiasts hopes to launch the lab — or garage — that spawns the future life sciences version of Apple Inc.
The loosely affiliated community of a few hundred or so members is called DIYbio, short for “Do-It-Yourself Biology.” The Boston-area (there isn’t an official headquarters) organization is looking to facilitate biotechnology projects that can involve the amateur and the professional scientist alike. “There are a great number of opportunities for an individual to get involved in biotechnology and contribute to scientific knowledge or develop a project and sell it,” said co-founder Jason Bobe. He and co-founder Mackenzie Cowell are working to provide the resources, including the facilities, know-how, and networking capabilities to do just that.
The founders see themselves as being like the early computer programmers who went on to build the modern information technology industry. “The age of small biotechnology is coming,” said Cowell. “As we get better at doing the science, you’ll see more garage-based biotechnology. My goal for our group is to facilitate that.” He recently earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Davidson College in North Carolina and has worked in the International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (IGEM) at MIT. In fact, he is comfortable being called a “DNA hacker,” claiming it “embodies the sort of innovate spirit that underlies the American dream.”
At this point, DIYbio is still mostly “a virtual community,” said Bobe, who is also director of community for the Personal Genome Project at Harvard Medical School. And it’s not clear just how DIYbio will be able to succeed in this amateur format. He pointed out one project that DIYbio is sponsoring is called the BioweatherMap, slated to begin around March. This will involve DIYbio volunteers in six cities across the country swabbing crosswalk buttons at intersections and sending the swabs off for DNA sequencing. When the data is compiled, it will be used to create a map of the “ebb and flow of bacterial communities in a city,” he said. “We hope it will go on indefinitely, much like weather forecasts are a daily source of information.”
Bobe and Cowell are considering a range of future options, including getting access to a public wet lab or even their own dedicated space. “We have to think carefully about the public perception of safety,” said Cowell.
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