OReilly Media Inc. - BioCoder

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Welcome to the readers, welcome to the editors, welcome to the contributors. Were all glad to have you along for this trip. A few words on what this is for, how it started, and perhaps where its headed. Though we dont really know where its headed. Well find that out on the journey.

Ive been following biology for a few years now. Im not a biologist, and havent taken biology since 7th or 8th grade, over 40 years ago. But I have watched it from a distance, and increasingly, it feels to me like something thats about to explode: it feels a lot like computing did in 1975, before there were PCs, but when a friend of mine got an 8008 and a used teletype and built a computer in his dorm room. That computing event signaled a lot of things. In 75, computing was arguably already 25 years old. But up to that point, it had been done by people with PhDs, people who wore white lab coats, people who had inconceivably large amounts of funding and built machines the size of houses. What my friend did was demonstrate that computing wasnt the property of a priesthood with lab coats: it was something that anyone could do.

Were now seeing that same shift in biology. Students are making glowing E. coli, both at community labs like Genspace and BioCurious and in high schools. iGEM exposes thousands to the idea of building with standard biological parts. Were seeing community laboratories spring up all over the world: literally on every continent except Antarctica. Experiments that formerly required a fully equipped laboratory with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment can now be done in a community hackerspace, equipped with little more than a homemade PCR machine and centrifuge powered by a Dremel tool. Were discarding the lab coats (if not the purple rubber gloves).

One unfortunate theme has stood out in my many conversations with biologists, though: Yeah, I think something is happening in Hoboken (or Austin, or Juneau, or Calgary), but I dont know what. While there is a large and active biohacking community, its poorly connected. The players dont know who each other are and whats going on across the community. Its symptomatic that one of the worlds largest gatherings of DIY biologists was organized by the FBI. They were friendly, but thats not the issue: if it takes the FBI to bring us together, we arent talking to each other enough.

Thats the problem were fixing with BioCoder. BioCoder is a newsletter for synthetic biologists, DIY biologists, neuro biologistsanyone whos interested in whats happening outside the standard academic and industrial laboratories. We plan to include:

Not all of the above, not in every issue. But as much as we can. Wed like to publish BioCoder quarterly. Although the first issues are free, wed eventually like this to become self-sustaining.

To do that, of course, well need contributions. Send a note to me or Nina DiPrimio, our volunteer editor, and well set you up. If youre unsure whether your idea is good enoughit probably is, but feel free to pitch an idea before writing it up.

Thanks again. Im thrilled to see our first issue, and Im looking forward to the second.

As I write this article, Im reflecting on the long expanses of otherworldly playa Ive just left, watching sandstorms pass in front of me while in altered mental states and contemplating the future of our beloved biotech industry.

I have, until recently been living a double life with one foot in the corporate biotech world and another deeply in the world of biohacking/radical science (working on DIY biolabs and equipment, longevity research, and ALS therapeutic development). I believe in the principles of citizen science and shared (or at least leaky ) IP as a means of accelerating scientific progress, but I felt I needed to play my part in the real biotech industry. That changed three months ago when I realized that to create the innovation we want in biotech, we may have to burn the bridges that got us here and re-create it ourselves, with or without the dinosaur the current biotech industry has become.

Since 1978arguably the birth of the biotech industry when Genentech created the first GMO producing insulinBiotech has become profitable and also heavily regulated. Biotech venture capitalists, the original sources of risk capital, have become risk-fearing middlemen/women who have been cowed into seeking safe returns for their masters (limited partners) and obsessed with spinning the right story to their customers (big pharma/biotech companies). Much of the shift away from risk has been rightfully laid on the FDAs door for an increase in regulatory burden and uncertainty that has spread as best practice globally and mired the pace of innovation. Regardless, large corporations and academia can no longer be entrusted to move radical science forwardtheir world has become a world of committees, budget allocation negotiations, and quarterly/yearly cycles, lacking in vision and with fear of failure. So where does it leave us? The refugees of the Biotech Valley of Death?

The power theyve taken from the people will return to the people, whether these vested interests want it or not. Biotech and medicine have advanced at a glacial pace, but a massive disruption is coming that will destroy the antiquated business models in the biotech, monopolistic healthcare, and pharmaceutical industries. As technologys pace continues to quicken, the biotech industry is beginning to benefit from a digitization of biology, the maker movement, quantified self, grinders/transhumanists, crowdsourcing, and a resurgence in local production technologies like 3D printers. A small group of hobbyists (several thousand globally) has emerged over the last couple of years and has begun building biotech equipment for 1/10th to 1/1000th the cost, creating novel open source diagnostic/medical devices, and therapeutically experimenting on themselves, as well bootstrapping and forging new paths in bioscience, like creating commercially available, genetically modified, glowing plants.

The business models for these emerging biotech industries are still evolving, but a true hunger is emerging from consumers and patients for new products offered through crowdsourcing sites, such as microbiome analysis; cheap and effective hormone analysis; novel industrial enzymes; algae-powered lights; true disease modifying therapeutics for established diseases and therapeutic life extension; cheap DIY biolab equipment; and technologies that amplify human senses, like the electromagnetic implants pioneered by grinders (i.e., those willing to biohack their own bodies). PWC has estimated that the biotech industry will be worth about $1.2 trillion globally by 2020, but this is based on a very conservative view of the industry, and with radical disruption and the creation of new products like synthetic meats, regenerative medicine, unconventional materials, and industrial enzymes, as well as the potential for homegrown biofermentation of many other products, the market for the new biotech industry will be vast and shifting.