[splatterdash]

The DIY biotech movement has been going on for some time now. People are drawing parallels between the movement and the early days of the tech scene, predicting DIY bio will be as big and influential as today's DIY tech scene.

While I want to be optimistic about that, the comment from Declan Soden in the article seems pretty spot on.

Putting together genes into plasmids and bacteria is just the beginning. The main goal is to endow some organisms with new useful traits. The problem is, testing the trait becomes increasingly difficult for DIY biologists because it is rarely as easy as putting the genes together. How do you test if your bacteria has made the desired anticancer compound? You need to chemically analyze your product, and ultimately you need to try it on people.

This is different compared to software. Open source software can become what it is today, because testing the software itself is relatively easy. Want to write a new browser? Just use it yourself. How about a new media player? Use it to play your videos and see how it goes.

[itmag]

I don't know anything at all about biotech, but it seems to me that the current process is something akin to manually entering machine code by flipping switches on a mainframe (or, another analogy: randomly gluing together libraries until something kinda works).

Maybe what is needed is some kind of programming language? Think VHDL but for biological stuff.

[possibilistic]

Just curious, but how interested would you (or others) be in a distilled introduction / survey of molecular biology? I've been thinking of writing or putting together some material at a somewhat higher level than, say, Khan Academy. No problem sets, just a fast and hard "this is why". Interested persons will challenge themselves, independently research, and put things together if they want deeper knowledge.

I've always felt that I could condense an entire two semester of cell phys/molec bio into a three hour video or 20-30 page article. I think the mind is surprisingly adept at filling in the holes...

Not saying that I have the talent to do this well. Is it something I should pursue?

[philk]

This would be fascinating. It would be great if you did this.

[jasonify]

Go for it and let us know when you have something. Twitter: @jasonyfied

[itmag]

Yes!

[abi]

+1.

[onemoreact]

That's the 'old' but cheap process.

We can directly encode an organism's DNA. As in scan something in Virginia, email it's DNA and have someone else in California who print's that organism's DNA which then goes on to reproduce.

PS: There are still limitations based on the cellular machinery that exists inside a cell and the target cell. But, when it comes to DNA we have that down.

[corwinbad]

check out http://genomecompiler.com

[iqster]

Check out biobricks.

[moonchrome]

>You need to chemically analyze your product, and ultimately you need to try it on people.

I can think of many industrial applications where biotech could help without the need to test it on humans, eg. food synthesis - efficiently producing essential amino acids, carbs and fats by bacteria in an environment suitable to industrial production. Or materials like that spider silk they did when genetically modifying silkworm.

[splatterdash]

Wouldn't that also requires access to industrial-grade chemicals & machines?

E.g. you need to purify your amino acids or carbs, and test the purity, check if any dangerous by-products are present, etc.

[minikomi]

You might able to get pretty close using some kind of Immunoassay. The techniques we have are still very brute force. Give it (a lot) of time.

[Joakal]

There's ways to develop dna, organs, bones, etc.

The 'browser' somewhat exists; the minor 'javascript' quirks can be tested in some of the 'browsers'.