Hi Everyone,

I'm new to the biopunk community. I'm a recent college graduate in biochemistry, and have read about DIYbio on and off for a couple of years, and I'm excited about its opportunity. Could anyone fill me in on the current trends and challenges in biopunk? Thanks!

Hi there,

Nice to see you! For me, one of the main challenges in biopunking is the expensive cost of synthesizing DNA. For most reagents, you can find cheap substitutes, like clear shampoo (containing EDTA) for extraction buffer and meat tenderizer as protease.

In terms of opportunities, I think they are quite vast. For example, vaccine development cannot be done efficiently as a business model. It does not make sense; a company will be trying to make a profit from the medicine, raising the price of the vaccine. However, DIYbioers could synthesize a vaccine that is easy to make, cheap to use, and open source and free. Obviously, there are safety regulations that the vaccine would have to pass through, but I think that it would make a truly positive impact. Also, biohackers can in some ways, improve the way that science is done. This probably sounds pretty weird to you, considering your biochemistry background, but in my opinion, the methods that biohackers use can help to streamline the way that we do science. Scientists are always looking for faster ways of doing simple things, such as the Genomikon project, which makes a faster way of DNA assembly.




chimeraboy