Blog by Chris Berry
In bedrooms, garages and lock-ups from the USA to Europe and
Asia, a new approach to life sciences is taking shape. Working individually or as collectives,
“biohackers” – citizen scientists operating outside the constraints of academic
or commercial biology labs – seek to adapt the genetic code of organisms such
as bacteria, in order to modify the way these behave.
Yet what leads people to participate in this DIY-bio
movement? Will it empower amateur
biological scientists to make important breakthroughs that will benefit
society, or are there dangers and threats associated with such unregulated
genetic tinkering? Or is DIY-bio nothing
more than an interesting hobby making only a limited contribution to
progressing scientific understanding?
These were some of the issues debated during DIY-Bio: Empowerment or Anarchy? – the
first of three Genomics Forum produced events at the Edinburgh International
Book Festival’s 2012 programme. Judging by
the significant audience the event attracted, there certainly appears to be
considerable interest in issues associated with DIY-Bio. Queue the event chair – Forum
Writer-in-Residence, Pippa Goldschmidt - taking a quick straw-poll as to the
number of biohackers present, resulting in the raising of just a couple of
hands.
The dearth of a citizen scientist presence provided an ideal
opportunity for event panellist and Forum Bright Ideas Fellow, Alessandro
Delfanti, to provide a potted history on DIY-Bio and biohacking. Alessandro – who will soon publish a book
entitled Biohackers – explained how
the DIY-bio movement originated in the USA, being established by those who
wanted to undertake experimentation that was not subject to the constraints imposed
by academic or commercial life science labs.
Key to the viability of such DIY-Bio labs has been the dramatic
reduction in the cost of equipment – such as DNA sequencers – as a result of
surplus hardware being disposed of by commercial labs, or some biohackers using
online instruction manuals to make facsimiles of commercial machines from readily
available parts.
In less than a decade, DIY-Bio has enabled PhD students, and
those less formally qualified in life sciences, from across the globe to
manipulate genomes, even buying specific genetic “bricks” (sequences of DNA that
code for certain cellular functions) by mail-order. But will this apparent “democratisation” of
science bring dramatic and significant benefits to society? Possibly not, was the opinion of
Innogen-based sociologist of the life sciences, Jane Calvert.
Arguing that, compared to commercial life sciences, DIY-Bio
was not sufficiently resourced to undertake the “big” research usually needed
to achieve significant breakthroughs, Jane did point out that DIY-Bio nonetheless
has the potential to engage and inform society with regard to the life
sciences. This was illustrated with the
example of the performance artist who claimed to have used DIY-Bio to engineer
yoghurt that produced Prozac. The
concept of a mood enhancing breakfast was seized upon by the media. The claim, it transpires, was false – part of
the artistic concept – but succeeded in drawing significant attention to
home-based synthetic biology.
A different assessment of the significance of DIY-Bio was
taken by Ben Hammersley, editor-at-large of Wired
magazine UK, who drew comparison between the evolution of the IT industry, and
the way in which open source programming (where anyone can access and change a
programme’s code) is beginning to challenge industry giants such as Microsoft
and Apple. As Ben identified, DNA is
merely a form of coded information, similar to the binary code that runs
computers, so why should it not be open to manipulation by anyone possessing
the skills to achieve this.
During questions from the audience, the ethical issues and
threats potentially associated with DIY-Bio were raised. The panel agreed that whilst DIY-Bio needed
to be undertaken in such a way as it didn’t present a risk to those carrying it
out, it was highly unlikely that someone would be able to produce a bio-weapon
in their bedroom. It was mentioned that
the DIY-Bio movement is very aware of the public perception of the risks it may
present and therefore in the US, and has even worked collaboratively with the
FBI. The public also seems concerned by the term “bio-hacker”, equating it with
malicious activity undertaken by computer hackers. Alessandro made an interesting point in
relation to this, indicating that the original meaning of the term “hacker”
referred to someone who liked to dismantle a machine or computer to see how it
worked, and potentially improve it. This
is very much the ethos of biohackers and DIY-Bio enthusiasts, albeit working
with cells rather than computers.
The very lively session drew to a close with the panel
considering whether DiY-Bio was indeed “proper” science, where experiments are
undertaken, data collected, and the experiment is then repeated to verify
results. There was some consensus that
DIY-Bio is perhaps currently more akin to engineering – with people effectively
using a biological Meccano kit to develop and assemble tweaked genomes. This is potentially producing divisions
between “pure” life scientists and DIY-biologists, similar to those seen in the
IT arena, where academic computer scientists sometimes frown upon the practices
of bedroom programmers and coders.
However Ben concluded that, with enough participants, DIY-Bio has the
potential to plant the seeds which might lead to new approaches and innovations
in relation to life sciences. As the IT world
has shown us, it may be academic IT practitioners who are undertaking the
purest science, but it is the amateur innovators of the likes of Facebook who
are now worth billions.
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