Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Software Meets Do-It-Yourself Biology
destinyland writes "This article profiles a growing movement — DIY biology — that's made possible in part by open source tools. Using programs like BioPerl and BioPython, DIY biologists write their own code (computer and genetic), designing their own biological systems and altering the genome. A protein-folding simulator, Folding@home, is now the most powerful distributed computing cluster in the world, and as the movement evolves, cooperatives are also springing up where hobbyists pool resources and create 'hacker spaces' to reduce costs and share knowledge. 'As the shift to open source software continues, computational biology will become even more accessible, and even more powerful,' this article argues — while intellectual property and other bureaucracies continue to hobble traditional forms of research."
On the plus side, doing dangerous things that are more dangerous to others than to yourself is substantially harder than just doing dangerous things.
Until we get to the point where you can just buy a programmable matter synthesizer with a voice interface that will accept the command "50grams aerosolized anthrax, weapons grade" the only real danger of DIY Biology will be a few scientist wannabees ending up in the ER on a stiff antibiotic drip after spilling the wrong bacterial culture on themselves.
DIY Bio is novel, and sciencey, which makes it OOH Scary; but, if you just want to hurt some people, good old-fashioned all-american firearms are way easier, cheaper, and substantially more refined.
Any progress since the last time this was on slashdot? No? Thought so.
Downloading computational biology software, that you have no idea how to use, makes you a molecular biologist, the same way that downloading finite element analysis software that you don't know how to use, makes you a mechanical engineer, downloading a SPICE simulator that you don't know how to use, makes you an electrical engineer, or downloading Pr0n that you can't re-enact makes you a sex expert. At least the Pr0n is easier to apply than a FEM or SPICE package, it being a "pictorial diagram", the disadvantage being that it requires a member of the appropriate sex (and species!) to re-enact.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
This concept of DIY biology is far, far older than science, itself. People have been manipulating livestock, crops, even our own genome, for a long time now. But the author of this article is right about new tools making the process that much more accessible and powerful.
The build-out of world trade over the last century has wrought some damaging changes to the world ecology. Invasive species, pernicious plant diseases, and the like are spreading world-wide. Government efforts in this realm have been sporadic and often do more harm than good. The ability of smaller, private organizations to conduct sophisticated science on a smaller budget will be a boon to the restoration of endangered species, for example.
But, I tagged this article with the whatcouldpossiblygowrong tag. Danger ahead.
Best regards.
Vijay Pande is a Stanford professor and funded primarily by the same agencies that fund most of the biomedical research in this country - most importantly, the NIH. (Disclaimer: they fund my work too.) He has full-time scientists (i.e. people who spent most of their 20s in school) and computer engineers writing code and assistance from hardware vendors (ATI/AMD and NVIDIA, at least). FAH is a great example of how to leverage distributed computing resources and volunteer effort, and it's an excellent technical solution to what is potentially a very expensive problem, but the intellectual effort is *not* distributed. I don't mean any of this as a criticism (I wish I had five petaflops at my disposal too), but this is not an example of "hobbyists" performing research free of bureaucracy. (In fact, the umbrella project for much of Pande's work now has a relatively large bureaucracy at Stanford, which surely wasn't suffering from a lack of bureaucracy to begin with.)
"many DIYers knowledge of these fields is so complete that the best among them design and conduct their own experiments at stunningly low costs. With adequate knowledge and ingenuity, DIYbiologists can build equipment and run experiments on a hobbyist's budget." That must be a (bad) joke. Forget the open-source/custom-made software and discount price hardware acquired on eBay, biology is first and foremost about wet lab. And not only it costs *a lot* but one needs licenses to purchase certain products. I have worked in biomedical research for almost ten years and I know that if you're in academia then you can purchase, say, enzymes and genetic vectors at their catalog price; but if you're industry then you get hit with 5-6 digit licensing fees. The only way to do at home what they claim to be doing is by using stuff from their academic research labs. Besides the risks involved (those cell line are actually cancer cells and engineered bacteria are mutant germs, not to mention the radioactively labeled nucleic acid probes that might end up in the toilet) the logistics are a nightmare. Storing liquid nitrogen in your basement? Discarding ethidium-bromide and acrylamide gels? Biological experiments are different from software development, they need follow up and supervision through the end, which may take 2-4 days. Drosophilla flys can't be frozen like bacteria. How do you discard biohazardous materials and mutagen/teratogen substances at home? There are many reasons why DIY biology is a very bad idea; it's a disaster waiting to happen.