BioCurious

Last updated
BioCurious
Formation2009
Purpose Biohacking, Hacking
HeadquartersSunnyvale,
Location
  • 3108 Patrick Henry Drive, Santa Clara, 95054
Coordinates 37°23′44″N121°59′01″W / 37.395634330620496°N 121.98371237080791°W / 37.395634330620496; -121.98371237080791 Coordinates: 37°23′44″N121°59′01″W / 37.395634330620496°N 121.98371237080791°W / 37.395634330620496; -121.98371237080791
ServicesBiosafety Level One lab (BSL-1, membership access
Website biocurious.org

BioCurious is a community biology laboratory and nonprofit organization located in Sunnyvale, California, [1] [2] [3] co-founded by Eri Gentry, Kristina Hathaway, Josh Perfetto, Raymond McCauley, Joseph Jackson, and Tito Jankowski. With the help of Kickstarter and 239 backers they raised $35,319. [4] [5] BioCurious is a complete working laboratory and technical library for entrepreneurs to access equipment, materials, and co-working space, and a meeting place for citizen scientists, hobbyists, activists, and students. Scientific American magazine has described BioCurious as "one of country’s premier community biotechnology labs [...]". [6]

Contents

The lab debuted on Kickstarter in 2010 and raised $35,319 from backers, and opened in October 2011. [1] [7] [8] [9] BioCurious has supported projects including a 3D Bioprinter, glow-in-the-dark plants. [10] [11] In 2016 BioCurious partnered with The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose to host Geektoberfest for beer enthusiasts, beer brewers, and scientists to learn the biology of beer with talks, demos and beer tastings. [12]

BioCurious is part of a thriving bioeconomy and is active in promoting the role of community biology labs innovation and entrepreneurship. [13] BioCurious is part of the international conversation about how biology will fundamentally change our world, [14] and has attended White House Makerspace meetings that highlight the growing importance of DIY spaces in the economy. [15] Part of this role is in providing space and resources for both early-stage startup companies or interested students [16] and holds its own ambitious community group projects, such as real vegan cheese (in collaboration with Counter Culture Labs), [17] the DIY bioprinter project, [18] microfluidics, and consulting on discussions in biosecurity. [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bioeconomy</span> Economic activity focused on biotechnology

Biobased economy, bioeconomy or biotechonomy is economic activity involving the use of biotechnology and biomass in the production of goods, services, or energy. The terms are widely used by regional development agencies, national and international organizations, and biotechnology companies. They are closely linked to the evolution of the biotechnology industry and the capacity to study, understand, and manipulate genetic material that has been possible due to scientific research and technological development. This includes the application of scientific and technological developments to agriculture, health, chemical, and energy industries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sartorius AG</span> German pharmaceutical company

Sartorius AG is an international pharmaceutical and laboratory equipment supplier, covering the segments of Bioprocess Solutions and Lab Products & Services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hackerspace</span> Community-operated physical space for people with common interests

A hackerspace is a community-operated, often "not for profit", workspace where people with common interests, such as computers, machining, technology, science, digital art, or electronic art, can meet, socialize, and collaborate. Hackerspaces are comparable to other community-operated spaces with similar aims and mechanisms such as Fab Lab, men's sheds, and commercial "for-profit" companies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DIYbio (organization)</span> Organization

DIYbio is an informal umbrella organization for individuals and local groups active in do-it-yourself biology, encompassing both a website and an email list. It serves as a network of individuals from around the globe that aims to help make biology a worthwhile pursuit for citizen scientists, biohackers, amateur biologists, and do-it-yourself biological engineers who value openness and safety. It was founded by Jason Bobe and Mackenzie Cowell in 2008.

Do-it-yourself biology is a growing biotechnological social movement in which individuals, communities, and small organizations study biology and life science using the same methods as traditional research institutions. DIY biology is primarily undertaken by individuals with limited research training from academia or corporations, who then mentor and oversee other DIY biologists with little or no formal training. This may be done as a hobby, as a not-for-profit endeavour for community learning and open-science innovation, or for profit, to start a business.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maker culture</span> Community interested in do-it-yourself technical pursuits

The maker culture is a contemporary subculture representing a technology-based extension of DIY culture that intersects with hardware-oriented parts of hacker culture and revels in the creation of new devices as well as tinkering with existing ones. The maker culture in general supports open-source hardware. Typical interests enjoyed by the maker culture include engineering-oriented pursuits such as electronics, robotics, 3-D printing, and the use of computer numeric control tools, as well as more traditional activities such as metalworking, woodworking, and, mainly, its predecessor, traditional arts and crafts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noisebridge</span>

Noisebridge is an anarchistic maker and hackerspace located in San Francisco, inspired by European hackerspaces Metalab and c-base in Berlin. It describes itself as "a space for sharing, creation, collaboration, research, development, mentoring, and learning," and outside of its headquarters forms a wider community around the world. It was organized in 2007 and has had permanent facilities since 2008.

The Glowing Plant project was the first crowdfunding campaign for a synthetic biology application. The project was started by the Sunnyvale-based hackerspace Biocurious as part of the DIYbio philosophy. According to the project's goals, funds were used to create a glowing Arabidopsis thaliana plant using firefly luminescence genes. Long-term ambitions (never realized) included the development of glowing trees that can be used to replace street lights, reducing CO2 emissions by not requiring electricity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genspace</span>

Genspace is a non-profit organization and a community biology laboratory located in Brooklyn, New York. Stemming from the hacking, biohacking, and DIYbio movements, Genspace has focused on supporting citizen science and public access to biotechnology. Genspace opened a Biosafety Level One laboratory in December 2010. Since its opening, Genspace has supported projects, events, courses, art, and general community resources concerning biology, biotechnology, synthetic biology, genetic engineering, citizen science, open source software, open source hardware, and more.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HackerspaceSG</span> Singaporean organisation

HackerspaceSG is a 1,202-square-foot (111.7 m2) technology community center and hackerspace in Singapore. While predominantly an open working space for software projects, HackerspaceSG is also a landmark of the Singapore DIY movement, and also hosts a range of events from technology classes to biology, computer hardware, and manufacturing. The space is open to all types of hackers.

Ryan Bethencourt is an American scientist, entrepreneur, and biohacker best known for his work as co-founder and CEO of Wild Earth, Partner at Babel Ventures and cofounder and former Program Director at IndieBio, a biology accelerator and early stage seed fund. Bethencourt was head of life sciences at the XPRIZE foundation, a co-founder and CEO of Berkeley Biolabs, a biotech accelerator, and Halpin Neurosciences, an ALS therapeutics-focused biotech company. Bethencourt co-founded Counter Culture Labs, a citizen science nonprofit, and Sudo Room, a hacker space based in downtown Oakland, California.

Biotechnology in India is a sunrise sector within the Indian economy. Agencies of the Government of India concerned with the biotechnology industry include the Department of Biotechnology and the proposed Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Labs</span>

SAM Labs is a startup that makes app-enabled construction kits, designed for people of all ages to learn STEM, play, and create with technology and the Internet of Things. The company has been featured in WIRED and The Telegraph. Founded by Belgian born CEO Joachim Horn, the company works out of their headquarters in East London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scientist.com (company)</span>

Scientist.com is a network of public and private e-commerce marketplaces that connect buyers and sellers of scientific research services. The company was founded in 2007 by Kevin Lustig, Chris Petersen and Andrew Martin and launched its first public research marketplace in September 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cellular agriculture</span> Production of agriculture products from cell cultures

Cellular agriculture focuses on the production of agricultural products from cell cultures using a combination of biotechnology, tissue engineering, molecular biology, and synthetic biology to create and design new methods of producing proteins, fats, and tissues that would otherwise come from traditional agriculture. Most of the industry is focused on animal products such as meat, milk, and eggs, produced in cell culture rather than raising and slaughtering farmed livestock which is associated with substantial global problems of detrimental environmental impacts, animal welfare, food security and human health. Cellular agriculture is field of the biobased economy. The most well known cellular agriculture concept is cultured meat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin Lustig</span>

Kevin Donald Lustig is a male American scientist and entrepreneur and founder of three life science companies: the pharmaceutical company Kalypsys in 2001; the online research marketplace Scientist.com in 2007; and the non-profit lab incubator Bio, Tech and Beyond in 2013.

The Omni Commons is a group of nine collectives in San Francisco's Bay Area devoted to DIY and community education. It traces its inception to the Occupy movement, specifically Occupy Oakland, and was founded in 2014 on the principles of "community, positive creation and radical inclusion".

The Victoria Makerspace is a biology community lab, founded by Derek Jacoby and Thomas Gray in 2010, and was one of the first do-it-yourself biology labs, following the establishment of BioCurious and Genspace in the US. The lab has taken part in the FBI DIY biology summit in Walnut Creek, California in 2012, the first Canadian DIY Biology Summit in 2016, and the iGEM synthetic biology competition in 2014 with a project on preventing dental decay.

Ulrich Schwaneberg is a German chemist and protein engineer. He is the Chair of Biotechnology at RWTH Aachen University and member of the scientific board at the Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials in Aachen. He specializes in directed evolution of proteins for material science applications and on the development of its methodologies. The latter comprise methods for diversity generation, as well as high-throughput screening systems. His work group has elucidated general design principles of enzymes by analyzing libraries that contain the full natural diversity of a hydrolase with single amino acid exchanges and developed strategies to efficiently explore the protein sequence space and discovered protein engineering principles.

John Maraganore is an American scientist and life sciences industry leader.

References

  1. 1 2 Välikangas, L.; Gibbert, M. (2015). Strategic Innovation: The Definitive Guide to Outlier Strategies. FT Press. pp. pt160–167. ISBN   978-0-13-398014-1 . Retrieved June 8, 2017.
  2. ↑ "Feeling Biocurious? How To Get Your DIY Bio On". KQED . January 23, 2012. Retrieved June 8, 2017.[ permanent dead link ]
  3. ↑ Wohlsen, M. (2011). Biopunk: Solving Biotech's Biggest Problems in Kitchens and Garages. Penguin Publishing Group. p. pt636–4. ISBN   978-1-101-47635-2 . Retrieved June 8, 2017.
  4. ↑ "About Biocurious". Biocurious. Biocurious. Retrieved 2016-06-17.
  5. ↑ "BioCurious: A Hackerspace for . The Community Lab for Citizen Science". Kickstarter. Retrieved 2016-06-17.[ permanent dead link ]
  6. ↑ Grushkin, Daniel (September 10, 2013). "DIY Biotech Labs Undergo Makeovers". Scientific American. Retrieved June 8, 2017.
  7. ↑ Group, Alia Wilson | Bay Area News; Sentinel, Santa Cruz; News, Mercury (2012-02-16). "Sunnyvale's BioCurious is a haven for innovators". The Mercury News. Retrieved 2020-02-06.{{cite web}}: |last3= has generic name (help)
  8. ↑ Akst, Jef (February 1, 2013). "Biology Hacklabs". The Scientist . Retrieved June 8, 2017.
  9. ↑ "BioCurious: A Hackerspace for Biotech. The Community Lab for Citizen Science — Kickstarter". kickstarter.com. Retrieved 7 June 2017.
  10. ↑ "A DIY Bioprinter Is Born". technologyreview.com. Retrieved 7 June 2017.
  11. ↑ "Glowing Plants: Natural Lighting with no Electricity — Kickstarter". kickstarter.com. Retrieved 7 June 2017.
  12. ↑ "Brewers, Biologists and Beer-Lovers Raise a Glass to Geektoberfest at The Tech". marketwired.com. Retrieved 7 June 2017.
  13. ↑ "The National Bioeconomy Blueprint". synthesis. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
  14. ↑ "How hackers transform biology into building material". PBS NewsHour. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
  15. ↑ "maker conference | HiveBio Community Lab". www.hivebio.org. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
  16. ↑ "Biology grad wins seed funding for biotech startup company". UC Santa Cruz News. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
  17. ↑ "COW MILK WITHOUT THE COW IS COMING TO CHANGE FOOD FOREVER". Wired magazine. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
  18. ↑ "BioCurious DIY BioPrinter". Scientific American. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
  19. ↑ "Adding CIA to DNA". Threatpost | The first stop for security news. Retrieved 2017-09-25.

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