5 ms·

Garage Biology in Silicon Valley (2010)

16 points by MCRed 11y ago

MCRed 11y ago
I'd love if anyone can point me to community site for DIY Bio / garage materials hacking. I have an idea for a hobby project that involves building a robot to mix small amounts of (safe, non-biological) liquids... need to be able to dispense 0.1ml to 10ml range, but very precisely. My current thinking is hooking up syringes with one way valves (one going to the supply, one going to the output) ... and a linear actuator or screw drive to move the plunger back and forth-- so on the pull stroke the syringe would fill from the reservoir and on the push stroke it would fill the output. But I figure there might be an off the shelf solution for something like this that's hacker friendly.
- trentmb 11y ago
  Perhaps a peristaltic pump[1], with the rollers spaced appropriately to achieve the minimum incremental amount? 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peristaltic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peristaltic_pump
- kanzure 11y ago
  > I'd love if anyone can point me to community site for DIY Bio / garage materials hacking. https://groups.google.com/group/diybio https://groups.google.com/group/diybio
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- randogp 11y ago
  To handle liquids on that volume range, biologists use micropipettes. These can be operated by a robot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ouPBX65kXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ouPBX65kXU
- _Wintermute 11y ago
  Most large-scale projects already involve automated liquid handling such as Tecan EVOs and Beckman Coulter BioMeks - these have been around for years.
w1ntermute 11y ago
> I continue to get push back from people who assert that "it is really too hard" to hack biology in a garage, or too expensive, or that garage labs just can't be up to snuff. This sort of dissent usually comes out of National Labs, Ivy League professors, or denizens of the beltway. All I can say to this is -- Doodz, you need to get out more. Are there any examples of significant biological advances or discoveries from "garage biology" in the years since this article was written?
- lvs 11y ago
  No, of course not. It's great to imagine that all science is accessible to everyone. It's a great democratizing concept. The trouble is that it's departed from reality.
  - comrh 11y ago
    It is so incredibly new though, not having major breakthroughs isn't too surprising. I don't think anyone is expecting it to replace research labs.
  - Houshalter 11y ago
    They seem to be saying that it's possible to do the same experiments as real labs, on a budget. Which might be true. The reason garage labs produce less than real labs, is more likely due to selection effects. The majority of people passionate about biology probably try to become professional biologists. The people doing experiments in their garages are those who didn't make it, or people totally outside the field. And there's also fewer of them. That's not to say if you took all the actual biologists and make them work in a garage, they wouldn't produce interesting things.
    - _Wintermute 11y ago
      It's already an issue in academic labs that many studies are statistically underpowered. If academic labs blowing through millions each year are producing questionable results due to cost-cutting, then the limited budget of DIY labs is going to be a huge problem.

16 points by MCRed 11y ago

MCRed 11y ago

I'd love if anyone can point me to community site for DIY Bio / garage materials hacking. I have an idea for a hobby project that involves building a robot to mix small amounts of (safe, non-biological) liquids... need to be able to dispense 0.1ml to 10ml range, but very precisely. My current thinking is hooking up syringes with one way valves (one going to the supply, one going to the output) ... and a linear actuator or screw drive to move the plunger back and forth-- so on the pull stroke the syringe would fill from the reservoir and on the push stroke it would fill the output. But I figure there might be an off the shelf solution for something like this that's hacker friendly.

trentmb 11y ago
Perhaps a peristaltic pump[1], with the rollers spaced appropriately to achieve the minimum incremental amount? 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peristaltic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peristaltic_pump
kanzure 11y ago
> I'd love if anyone can point me to community site for DIY Bio / garage materials hacking. https://groups.google.com/group/diybio https://groups.google.com/group/diybio
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
randogp 11y ago
To handle liquids on that volume range, biologists use micropipettes. These can be operated by a robot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ouPBX65kXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ouPBX65kXU
_Wintermute 11y ago
Most large-scale projects already involve automated liquid handling such as Tecan EVOs and Beckman Coulter BioMeks - these have been around for years.

w1ntermute 11y ago

> I continue to get push back from people who assert that "it is really too hard" to hack biology in a garage, or too expensive, or that garage labs just can't be up to snuff. This sort of dissent usually comes out of National Labs, Ivy League professors, or denizens of the beltway. All I can say to this is -- Doodz, you need to get out more. Are there any examples of significant biological advances or discoveries from "garage biology" in the years since this article was written?

lvs 11y ago
No, of course not. It's great to imagine that all science is accessible to everyone. It's a great democratizing concept. The trouble is that it's departed from reality.
- comrh 11y ago
  It is so incredibly new though, not having major breakthroughs isn't too surprising. I don't think anyone is expecting it to replace research labs.
- Houshalter 11y ago
  They seem to be saying that it's possible to do the same experiments as real labs, on a budget. Which might be true. The reason garage labs produce less than real labs, is more likely due to selection effects. The majority of people passionate about biology probably try to become professional biologists. The people doing experiments in their garages are those who didn't make it, or people totally outside the field. And there's also fewer of them. That's not to say if you took all the actual biologists and make them work in a garage, they wouldn't produce interesting things.
  - _Wintermute 11y ago
    It's already an issue in academic labs that many studies are statistically underpowered. If academic labs blowing through millions each year are producing questionable results due to cost-cutting, then the limited budget of DIY labs is going to be a huge problem.