Do It Yourself Biology Research, Past and Present

Harperdog writes "Laura Kahn has a great article about the long and fascinating history of do-it-yourself research, from Darwin and Mendel to present day. From the article: 'Welcome to the new millennium of do-it-yourself (DIY) biology. Advances in technology in the twenty-first century have enabled anybody, with the desire and the disposable income, to build rather sophisticated laboratories in their own homes. Entire communities have even materialized to promote these efforts -- like the thousands of amateur biologists who contribute to DIYbio.org, a website "dedicated to making biology an accessible pursuit for citizen scientists, amateur biologists and biological engineers."'"

Comments

Re:50/50

[SJHillman]

I took microbiology as an elective in college, probably one of the more fun courses I took outside of my major. Nothing says fun like making E coli change color or using bacteria to draw pictures in petri dishes. The fact that it was an elective took a bit of the stress off - there's no doubt I had more fun than anyone else in the class (I was the only one there who didn't require it, the rest were bio majors. I was also one of only two A's in the class of ~40 students).

When condoms break.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do It Yourself Biology Research, Past and Present

Teenagers know this too well.

Re:50/50

[RightSaidFred99]

Totally, and if I didn't go into computers my #2 choice by a long shot would have been microbiology. Can't get more interesting than the fundamental building blocks of life.

But I'm still not convinced this stuff isn't going to get easy enough such that some nut or terrorist will be able to design something that will kill half a billion people. I just hope that by that time it will also be advanced enough that the professionals can immunize/mitigate it before it kills very many people.

If ever hobbyist science becomes important

[mbkennel]

becomes significant, it means that the existing scientific base and funding was wrecked. (Feels like Roman Empire AD400).

In reality, people who work at something for a living (meaning full time employement) after many years of full time education, are the ones who produce results which are scientifically and economically useful.

Hobbyist science is nice entertainment. Sure, a few former biologists (i.e. used to work full time learning and doing science until they couldn't get a job any more) might make some minor contributions----but their experience and knowledge came from working full time in the real industry.

And nearly all professional science is "do it yourself or get your postdocs to do it"---who else knows enough? It takes lots of money and full time sustained effort for decades to get somewhere.

Comparing today to Darwin's day is foolish---scientific productivity increased enormously once a significant number of people were able to do it for a living and with less regard for class history and personal family wealth.

Re:If ever hobbyist science becomes important

[dkleinsc]

Hobbyist science has always been part of the mix, sometimes an important part of the mix. Some examples:
* Isaac Newton was actually an alchemist by trade - the physics and math were basically just fun side projects.
* Albert Einstein published some of his most important stuff while working as a patent clerk.
* Grote Reber was one of the key pioneers in radio astronomy working with a telescope he'd built in his backyard.

Now, I'll grant you that often amateur science is, well, amateurish, but occasionally an amateur scientist strikes gold, and I see no reason to discourage people from messing with it. They aren't going to be as good at it as the professionals, but at worst they accomplish nothing except have a little fun, and at best they add something to the scientific knowledge of humanity. Another way of looking at the argument: 100 pros could perhaps come up with 15 useful results a year, while 10000 amateurs could perhaps come up with 2. The pros are obviously much better than the amateurs, but we're all better off with 17 useful results than 15 useful results.

Re:If ever hobbyist science becomes important

[0123456]

I suspect IBM said the same about those amateurs thinking they could build computers in their garage.

Re:If ever hobbyist science becomes important

[tburkhol]

First, I'd say that fundamental advances are changes in the basic way we look at things. I think they happen most when someone is not encumbered by the existing dogma, and open whole new areas in which even professional scientists lack expertise. What were the limits of evolutionary biology before Darwin? Very little "science" actually happens that way - most of it is the somewhat plodding refinement and clarification of existing theory, and professional scientists are definitely better suited to make those kinds of advances. Of course, it's hard to distinguish "revolutionary" from "crackpot," and having a professional reputation helps in that distinction.

Second, I would say that it is not even important for a home scientist to make truly novel findings or advances. I think the principle value in home study of biology, or chemistry, or anything else, is to make that knowledge personal. If you think science is interesting, then go do it! Millions of people play basketball, despite having no chance of ever making it a career. Millions play guitar, or piano, without any ambition to give concerts. Or paint. Or write. We don't mock any of those people, or condescend to them like they're wasting their time. Or tell them they'd be better off reading reports of the NBA playoffs than actually going out on the court. Why should discovering the world around you be restricted to people who can push at the recognized boundaries of knowledge?

Re:If ever hobbyist science becomes important

[ColdWetDog]

Exactly this. Don't expect Nobel Prizes, expect interested and informed people. And likely only a few of them - this isn't something that you are going to find on Jersey Shore. Remember, amateurs do things because they want to.

That's all that has to happen.

Re:If ever hobbyist science becomes important

[Genda]

Happens all the time, just need to look. Try this potential cure for cancer. The gentleman was trying to cure his own cancer and actually had a significant remission, but ultimately died. But the underlying technology has been the root of an entire spectrum of new therapeutic technologies using nanograin metals and external energy sources to induce chemical, biological, and physical events to impact diseases.

There is no shortage of good ideas, bright people, or visionary people. There is an overabundance or orthodoxies, bureaucracies, superstitions about education vs. aptitude, and a general laziness with people in positions of power or authority to distinguish between what looks good on paper vs. what works well in the world. A society that allowed more people to participate in discovery, and allowed them to distinguish themselves, vs. endless lines of acolytes who've already swallowed the KoolAid to get to the point of selection, might allow us to make new and truly unexpected discoveries.

What could possibly go wrong?

[jrmcc]

I have complete faith in the biologist next door to not produce some new killer life form.

Re:Materials

[Hatta]

Depends on what you're doing. If you're doing PCR to screen a large number of transformants, or if you're using the dNTPs to synthesize your own oligos, you'll go through a lot.

IMO, this is where the focus of DIY bio should be for a while. Try and find out how to get expensive reagents for reasonable prices. dNTPs are just one example. What are these people staining their gels with anyway? Ethidium bromide is somewhat toxic, and Sybr safe is fairly expensive.

Also, are people doing histology at home? You might be able to produce your own antibodies, if you keep rabbits. But can you conjugate fluorescent markers to them?

What about western blots? Is polyacrylamide available to the hobbyist?

I guess what I'm saying is that there's a lot that can be done, but also a lot that can't be done at home on the cheap. We're still in the phase where the most important research is on techniques, not biology.

Re:50/50

[Samantha Wright]

Honestly, statements like that severely devalue the amount of work that went into ebola, HIV, and influenza in the first place. Millions of years of evolution ain't free, y'know!

How about breeding plant varieties?

[PeterM from Berkeley]

I don't think people realize how much threat there is to worldwide food security just from new pests/diseases coming along.

1) Commercial bananas are going extinct due to a fungus. Last I heard, there was no replacement crop that is resistant. This has happened several times in this industry, but this time there's no good replacement banana.
2) Citrus (all commercial citrus) are going extinct due to a bacterium spread by sap-sucking insects. No resistant replacement crops that I know of.
3) Chocolate, same deal, I forget the disease/vector.
4) Wheat is under threat, too.

Breeding new plant varieties is something everyone can try. One of them may be both resistant and commercially viable.

--PM

Re:How about breeding plant varieties?

[ChromeAeonium]

That is a good idea, but one thing I'd add is trying under cultivated species. There are a lot of plants that represent potentially significant agricultural species, but often there has been limited work on these plants. There is little funding for these things in major private or university programs because there isn't much consumer demand for them, and of course without superior varieties you might not be able to create demand, so you won't be able to justify programs on them, and its a nasty circle. Your examples would be pretty tough because there are already people working on them so an individual's contributions will be relatively smaller, and in some cases the problems themselves are pretty tough. Citrus greening for example IIRC has no known natural sources of resistance, so its pretty hard to breed in something not found in the family.

So, if you get some land, I'd suggest trying to breed undercultivated fruit like Japanese raisin tree, goumi, honeyberry, maypop, mulberry, ect., and if you live in a tropical spot you've got lots more options (or course, breeding fruit takes lots of room and thousands of plants and takes a long time so this would be a long term project) or undercultivated vegetables like yacón, jícama , kutjera, salicornia, New Zealand spinach (which is actually not a spinach and is more closely related to living stone plants), or undercultivated grains like quinoa, teff, and Job's tears, just to name a few of varying degrees of cultivation and existing improvement work. Even 'weeds' like spurge nettle are edible. There is a lot of potential, both in terms of agricultural benefit and culinary value, but since there is so little work being done on these types of things, perhaps crowd-sourced breeding is the best option for the advancement of biodiversity. I'd love to do this myself if I had the land.

Re:How about breeding plant varieties?

[ChromeAeonium]

Yes and no on those. Bananas are not going to go extinct, but there may be sever problems with the Cavendish, as there was with the Gros Michael. It certainly isn't doomsday thing, but it could be pretty bad. There are actually a lot of varieties of banana, but only a few major export varieties. What I'd really worry about here is not the fungal diseases of black sigatoka and Panama disease, but the bacterial disease banana xanthomonas wilt, which could pose dangerous problems for areas of Africa where bananas and plantains are a major source of calories. I don't think there is much, if any, naturally occurring resistance to BXW so genetic enginering might be the only option for this one (which rules out the home breeding thing).

Citrus on the other hand is very threatened by citrus greening. I don't think there is any natural resistance to it. Grafting to rootstocks does help for some diseases in some cases, but not this one. Biotech looks to be the only option for this one too.

Chocolate problems are partially due to the aging trees that are not being replaced, but diseases like witches' broom are also a major limiting factor in production.

As for wheat, Ug99 is still a major threat to wheat production in some parts of the world, so I would not call that misinformation.

Re:How about breeding plant varieties?

[cusco]

Hundreds? Try over two THOUSAND varieties of potato are grown commercially throughout the country, and there are others that are only grown in a single location. Papa huyro was almost impossible to buy for a time, because it was very popular, started getting planted in large monocultures, and got mostly wiped out by grubs. The c'ompis, chuscos, Peruanitas, yemas, etc. were fine and filled that market niche, and once the large plantations disappeared the huyro came back. (I'm glad, because they're delicious baked.)

Peru has quite a number of other root crops that are utterly unknown outside the highlands, such as olluco and tayacha, and a bewildering variety of fruits that are only sold locally. The place is a culinary wonderland.

Re:Materials

[flyingsquid]

It may well be correct to say that the number of amateur scientists has increased, and the tools available to an amateur scientist are pretty impressive (compare the computing power and software of an average laptop to a university machine 50 years ago). But the trend is clear- amateurs are playing less and less of a role.

The biggest reason is that it's simply harder to make a discovery now than it was 100 or 200 years ago. Back in the time of Galileo, you could do cutting-edge physics research by dropping two wooden balls of different masses. The total cost of the research would be trivial and it would take you a few minutes to conduct. These days, cutting-edge physics means an experimental device like the Large Hadron Collider, hundreds of people, years of time, and billions of dollars. Cutting edge was within the reach of anybody in 1564, now it can only be accomplished with the support of a large nation. The same goes for astronomy. Galileo was able to build a telescope that was more powerful than anything out there, point it at the moon and planets, and see things people had never seen before. These days, doing cutting-edge astronomy research requires a space telescope or an observatory, again costing millions or billions of dollars, putting cutting-edge astronomy research beyond the reach of an amateur. The amount of expertise has also gone up- science has advanced so much that it may take 10 years of higher education just to become familiar with the science that has already been done, before you can start actually making major discoveries yourself. That kind of time commitment is difficult for an amateur working in their off-hours to match.

As a result, the vast majority of scientific discoveries are made by full-time scientists employed by universities, research institutions, or corporations, working in teams, and supported by their institutions or large granting agencies. It's not unique to science, we see this with technology as well. Back in the day, Orville and Wilbur Wright put together the world's most advanced aircraft in their bicycle workshop; these days huge teams of engineers labor at Boeing or Skunkworks to put together the newest plane. The Apple I was put together by hobbyists, the latest iPad involves huge teams of designers and programmers working in collaboration with Chinese factories. As a field advances, it's harder and harder for someone with limited resources and limited time to make a major contribution.

Re:50/50

[Samantha Wright]

Pretty sure it was a Friday. Genesis is fairly clear that He couldn't get a date because of His unsightly beard, and so in His divine anger, bequeathed unto His children a wide variety of ills both minor and major, including not only ebola, HIV, and influenza, but also the bubonic plague, insurance salespeople, and stubbed toes.

Re:Materials

[BackyardBrains]

Science is often about asking the right question and the appropriate experimental design. The statements you make above have been repeated through the ages. We shall be continually be surprised by amateurs with curiosity. SpaceX and James Cameron's recent ocean dive could be considered to be done by rich "amateurs" who went professional.

Re:Materials

[Belial6]

Not really. I would guess, just guess mind you, that there are plenty of "fill in the gaps" discoveries to be made. Things that when posted on Slashdot will elicit insults about how anyone with an electron microscope COULD have done it.

There is also the fact that when armatures do the same experiments that the pros do, the results are more likely to make it into the general public. A 12 year old is unlikely read an expensive, for pay, peer reviewed article. On the other hand, they might do the experiment at home.

Even for the pros, it is much better to have a teen enter the field with 5-10 years of experience in the simpler areas of the field when they enter college than it is to have them starting from scratch at 18 or 19.

Re:Materials

[BackyardBrains]

Galileo slapping together lenses was incredibly "cutting edge" (pun intended) for its time. It was a brand new field dominated by very talented craftsman. It just seems quaint now. Though you may come from physics, I come from the field of neuroscience where there are literally so many unanswered questions that amateurs can discover things just by recording and analyzing animal behavior. See Bob Full's elegant work at Berkeley: high speed photography of animal locomotion that could have been done by an amateur willing to invest in equipment. Science is about asking the question, not the equipment you have. Perhaps this no longer holds for physics.

Re:Materials

[ColdWetDog]

You certainly could do classical E. coli or phage genetics. All you need is some growth media, pipettes and petri dishes. I'm not sure how that would translate into cutting edge research but it's doable.

You could potentially do some screening / growth requirements for some of the millions of new viruses that are floating about. These seem poorly characterized and again, it's rather classical microbiology.

But yes, modern molecular biology is going to be tough without an account at one of the many vendors of probes, etc.

One thing that does strike me is the sheer number of companies marketing sophisticated molecular probes / cell lines / antibiodies etc. In my day we had to make them de novo (and cut the glass for our gels and purify the acrylamide and make our own electricity....). If you had deep enough pockets, you could get pretty sophisticated very quickly.

Re:What?

[Genda]

Trust me, you're not leaning left in any way, its an illusion cause by standing too close to someone who leans so far to the right he's beginning to tear the right edge of the film sprockets. Kind of like light near a black hole bends from the gravity... perhaps a good analogy on several levels. Creepy is the right word. The NeoCons have turned conservatism into a religion, and as a belief system are no longer bond to, or bothered by facts or even sanity. Look at the whole cut government spending religion. During the Reagan era, the whole "Trickle Down" fiasco began, and predictably the economy started sliding into the toilet, Ronny at least increased government investment into the economy and things perked up (of course doing that on top of huge tax cuts to the rich also started piling up huge deficits, but that wasn't going to blow up in his lifetime so why should he care, and he didn't.) Clinton inherited a broken economy that was still being abused by "Trickle Down", so he set up a variety of new spending (including Federal subsidies for the high tech industry), plus moderate net tax increase (combined with strategic tax cuts in industries he meant to empower) not only stabilized the economy but created a boom in employment, a flourishing economy and a huge surplus (which we could have used to start paying down the national debt.) I won't even talk about Dubyah, he was an embarrassment no matter what your political persuasion. Now we have a President desperately trying to create economic stimulus while caught in the teeth of a neoconservative beast perfectly willing to gut the entire nation to make us all conform to their personal beliefs which fly in the face of logic, factual evidence, or even some iota of sanity (that or their need to control completely is so great that they are willing to ruin our nation and its people, to win a President who will carry out their agenda.) Either position is equally despicable.

A great person once said "The measure of a statesman is his ability to hold true to his core beliefs while compromising where it serves the greater good to move the society forward." It is virtually impossible to build consensus by bullying, or stonewalling, or viciously attacking members who don't tow the party line with your state religion. As we've become more polarized as a nation, we've sent ever greater pit-bulls to Washington to win for our side (that's both sides by the way), and what we have now is an ongoing political donnybrook that's effectively killing off any real chance for constructive state building while the only laws that get passed are those bought and paid for by men paying with the tax dollars they were given as corporate welfare... and the only difference between the sides I can see is which industries they choose to sleep with... so there are precious few innocent players on either side of the aisle thank you very much.

Did any of you see the disgusting behavior of the the Senators who man the Senate Banking Committee as they addressed Jamie Dimon CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase? This is the highest banking regulatory body in our nation... why is it that the largest contributor (for virtually every one of them) was also J.P. Morgan Chase, through Jamie Dimon? They did everything but fan his fevered brow and peel grapes for him. This is supposed to be our best hope for making the Bankers straighten up and fly right, and they're too busy trying to fellate a CEO who just lost $7,000,000,000 on precisely the same gambling that blew the economy up 4 years ago. I would wager to guess that all the banks are doing precisely the same risky gambling that almost brought our nation to its knees, and our Federal Unregulators just let this insanity go on because they are too well paid to look the other way. Bringing us back to beliefs. I'm sorry, but some things just need to be regulated, because human beings besides being loving, compassionate and knowledge seeking are just as equally selfish, lazy, greedy, Machiavellian, rotten, power hungry bastards. You better account for both sides of the human coin or the future will have it's way with you and it will not be pretty outcome. A dose of reality in D.C. would be truly refreshing right about now.

Re:What is this disposable income of which you spe

[MagusSlurpy]

It's the income the government takes from you and disposes of.

Re:Materials

[Genda]

You're absolutely correct. Look at the work being done by amateur astronomers, Moreover, you can get a telescope today for about the cost of a new hybrid car, that exceeds anything that could reasonably have been owned by an amateur even 20 years ago. The addition of goto systems and image processing capabilities and digital imaging. means that in the area of astronomy, amateurs are making real and significant contributions, not to mention, magnificent and inspiring images of astronomic wonders. Hubble opened the door, but a whole generation has stepped through.

The area I feel saddest about are Chemistry. When I was a kid, I could create anything I wanted. It took a little work and a good supplier, but I really could construct a small lab and make anything, even potentially scary compounds from Amonium TriIodide to heavy metal Pycrates (and perhaps a little fulminate of mercury on occasion... anyone whose done that remembers the smell of green apples.) Now its almost impossible to find good oxidizers, and con acids have all been tagged as reagents used for manufacturing drugs. Don't get me wrong, working with heavy metals and potentially flammable or explosive materials requires caution, common sense, and a safe place to carry out reactions, where an accident damages a metal box, and not people in a crowded neighborhood (also, nothing beats having a skilled technician showing you what works and what doesn't.) Today, the government would be down on you so fast, you'd be paralyzed by the whiplash alone. You can still make rockets, but Jebus help you, if you have any political leanings that might make the government question your intentions. Oxidizers and fuel are grounds for a lot folks to just assume you're some kind of terrorist. No matter how little evidence to support and how much to the contrary.

Sadly for those who love the magic of oxidation... it seems fireworks are the only remaining venue without excessive risk of government reprisal. I've had several friends in ended up at NASA, looking to master controlled conflagration vs. unmanaged detonation.