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DIY biology and the world of tomorrow
Do-It-Yourself biology (DIY-bio) is a term that has been trending in the media for the last few years. It is an interesting phenomenon that we find to be closely related to synthetic biology, iGEM and our project. We have therefore decided to research this topic more closely.
DIY biology can be described as a movement that is independent from the government, academic and corporate institutions. It attracts people with a common interest in biology who want to study and practice it without the costs and restraints imposed by universities and other institutions. DIY projects are an example of citizen science, where everyone can participate and contribute to the experiments without prior specialist training. DIY biologists often form communities centered in a specific place, creating common labspaces. [1]
The DIY community is a diverse one, with people having different backgrounds and motivations [2]. Among them there are scientists who decided to pursue their ideas in a restriction-free environment where they can avoid some of problems imposed by supervision, legislation and organisation of research institutions [3]. Other people are simply hobbyists who are interested in biology but do not have the time or the money to pursue an academic education. Another common motivation is overcoming the challenges of this developing field of science - people often try to create cheaper tools and maximise the efficiency of available resources. An example of major advances could be the openPCR or a simple DremelFuge. The topic of DIY tools was also approached by previous iGEM teams e.g. 2010 Bangalore. The advances in DIY biology can prove to be useful for academic research in that they can lead to lower prices of equipment as well as increased interest in a specific field.
Figure 1: DIY laboratory. Adapted from Nature article by H. Ledford [3]
The sheer number of people involved in DIY biology is impressive but it is inevitably associated with questions about the quality of their work, as most DIY project are low-cost and simple. DIY biology offers a great potential for crowdsourced ideas to be tested by reality and multiple community labs can work together to refine the concept. An increase in the number of people involved in citizen science will hopefully mean that the quality of such projects will improve.
However, lack of formal supervision and regulation often raises concerns about DIY projects negatively affecting the environment or even leading to bioterrorism [4]. These concerns are supported by the FBI’s involvement in DIY biology communities.
These two paragraphs present the views at both ends of the spectrum but, as is the case with most extreme statements, the truth is likely to lie somewhere between the two extremes. The FBI involvement in DIY biology is a movement towards collaboration rather than limitation and the communities tend to be very open to discussion about safety issues.
The DIYBio community could be regarded as a form of public engagement with synthetic biology, but it is important to ask where they stand in the dialogue between science and the public. DIY communities are often associated with people who come from both scientific and non-scientific backgrounds and therefore these communities offer an unique opportunity for interactions between different people with different ideas. Even though the future is impossible to predict, it is interesting to question whether DIY biology is going to become an integral part of scientific advancement alongside the academic research institutions.
DIY biology and iGEM
A major part of DIY biology is closely associated with the field of synthetic biology. This brings it close to iGEM, which is constantly advancing this field. We found this connection to be very intriguing and as part of our project we have initiated a discussion about iGEM on the DIY community discussion board [5]Over the years of its activity, iGEM managed to create useful standards that allow for easy assembly and modification of genes. As such, iGEM has a great potential to benefit DIY development via the open source BioBrick standard. The Parts Registry is easy to access and has a rich database of genes that is being constantly improved. The ideas behind iGEM and DIY communities seem to share a common theme: creative freedom, problem solving and development of the field of synthetic biology. Even though the methods and people behind them are different, there is a big potential for cooperation. The question is whether the resources offered by iGEM are actually accessible and useful for DIY community?
The BioBrick standard is a useful standard but access to physical DNA is limited. DIY communities often face the problem of limited access to resources due to security issues and theiGEM Parts Registry is no different in this case. This has created an interesting situation where iGEM is being developed in major part by undergraduates taking part in the competition. Students provide hundreds of BioBricks each year and extending the scope of the competition to include DIY communities could prove beneficial to the quality of parts in the Registry. Regardless of iGEM organisation, DIY biology can benefit from the dropping prices of gene sequencing. As the prices drop, the open source BioBricks become more available to DIY communities even without direct support from iGEM. This way the BioBrick standard can be used by individuals in an independent way which fits the DIY notion very well.
Even though the current involvement of iGEM in DIY biology is limited, the potential benefits of DIY community involvement in iGEM are not overlooked by the organisers. In 2009 the iGEM competition was opened to independent teams including DIY communities. This decision was met with an enthusiastic answer from the DIY community. [6] However, later in the year this decision was withdrawn due to safety and funding issues. [7] Even though this attempt to join iGEM wasn’t successful, there are still many opportunities for DIY biologists to become involved in iGEM as the teams are often open for collaboration offers. Such is the case with 2012 UCL’s project of collaboration with the London DIY community. They have conducted a series of experiments in the public labs and showed that it offers a great opportunity to develop and promote iGEM. Overall the DIY community remains enthusiastic towards the idea of collaboration with iGEM and we are looking forward to seeing whether the future will bring further opportunities for cooperation between the DIY community and iGEM.
DIY biology and our project
As discussed above, iGEM has a potential to link with DIY biology. We were interested in the question of how our project relates to this notion. As our goal is to create tools for easier and safer synthetic biology, DIY biology seems like an obvious choice for a potential application. But is it?One of the major parts of our project is the characterisation of Citrobacter Freundii as a new chassis to be used in synthetic biology. The DIY community often utilises chassis’ different from those commonly used in the lab e.g. yoghurt bacteria. Tools and conditions used in DIY labs enforce the choice of more robust, easier to access and less harmful bacteria. We believe that C. freundii meets at least some of these requirements: it is salt-tolerant, uses a variety of carbon sources (including some commonly available sugars such as sucrose and sugars from biomass, such as cellulose). At the same time it is compatible with most of the protocols available for E. coli and it’s also less harmful as it is not known to cause disease to as large an extent as E. coli. However, the question remains whether the DIY community would actually find the organism useful and whether they would be able to access it as it’s mainly only used in the lab.
Another aspect of our project is non-antibiotic selectable markers. Antibiotic spread is a major safety concern that often limits both researchers and DIY biologists. The alternative marker can therefore prove to be very beneficial to the community. It is also cheaper to use as one of our selectable markers utilizes sucrose as substrate rather than an expensive antibiotic. Eventually we hope that our project will help make synthetic biology more acceptable and practical, which are also major goals of DIY biology.
The final element of our project, the bio-electric interface offers some potential benefits to the DIY community as well. It was designed to be easy to set up and obtain easy-to-interpret data. Throughout the summer we have tried to miniaturise the whole system and make it more portable and cheap. Hopefully with further improvement it could become a useful tool for fieldwork and also DIY labs. Another major advantage of the bio-electric interface is the possibility to connect it to a computer. Biology is already well integrated with information technology and biologists are often involved in bioinformatics. We hope to use the fact that everyone in the DIY community can access a computer to make data gathering and interpretation of results easier.
1. Kean S. (2011). A Lab of Their Own. SCIENCE vol. 333, September 2011, 1240-1241.
2. Wohlsen M. (2011). Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life. Published by Current Hardcover in April 2011. ISBN 978-1-61723-002-8
3. Ledford H. (2010). Life hackers. Nature vol. 467, October 2010, 650-652
4. Bennett G., Gilman N., Stavrianakis A. and Rabinow P. (2009). From synthetic biology to biohacking: are we prepared? Nature Biotechnology, vol 27, No 12, December 2009.
5. https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/diybio/BeWcYEoOqA0
6. http://diybio.org/2009/02/09/diyigem/
7. http://diybio.org/2009/04/10/igem-closes-doors-to-amateurs/
