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I found a virology textbook at the local Catholic book fair when I was in 6th grade, got hooked, teacher in 7th grade let me order GFP transformation kits to th

by koeng 3y ago

I found a virology textbook at the local Catholic book fair when I was in 6th grade, got hooked, teacher in 7th grade let me order GFP transformation kits to the school that I could do at home, then off to the races from there. I was in this article if you're interested in more deets: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/science/biohackers-gene-editing-virus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/science/biohackers-gene-e...

minzi 3y ago
Incredible! Obviously tons of credit to you individually, but also huge kudos to your teacher for encouraging your curiosity.
owenpalmer 3y ago
That's so cool! If I may ask, what is your level of education?
- koeng 3y ago
  I never went to university or anything, but did work for 4 years at UCI in directed evolution / mitochondrial engineering, then 3 years at Stanford on the FreeGenes project (got invited to work at both). Barely passed high school cause I didn't care about my classes there.
  - JohnMakin 3y ago
    zot zot
tanseydavid 3y ago
I swear I feel like I'm dreaming this thread.
viciousvoxel 3y ago
That's awesome. I also got hit hard by the science bug (pun intended) as a kid, which I can partly attribute to finding a random virology textbook in an academic bookstore dollar bin. I was obsessed with virology at least until college. I ended up majoring in math in college but made it through Ochem II and did some lab internships before committing to that path. Now I'm a ML/software engineer with a healthy interest in biochem.
tim333 3y ago
Cool! Though it's a bit scary how easy it would be for someone to make something dangerous as mentioned in the nyt article. The 2018 article ends: >“There are really only two things that could wipe 30 million people off of the planet: a nuclear weapon, or a biological one,” .... >“Somehow, the U.S. government fears and prepares for the former, but not remotely for the latter. It baffles me.” I guess we may have seen that kind of thing happen a year later with covid though that would have been government sponsored mucking around rather than DIY if it wasn't natural. Not sure how we stop that happening again?
- koeng 3y ago
  Personally, I think the threat from the biologics itself is a little overstated. If COVID was released from a lab (I think it was natural), it was most likely due to bad governance and management of the lab. For DIY things - most DNA can be screened. I have had companies offer screening services for about 50k-100k a year. I can't afford that! So hopefully a free service or something near to that comes online.

by koeng 3y ago

minzi 3y ago

Incredible! Obviously tons of credit to you individually, but also huge kudos to your teacher for encouraging your curiosity.

owenpalmer 3y ago

That's so cool! If I may ask, what is your level of education?

koeng 3y ago
I never went to university or anything, but did work for 4 years at UCI in directed evolution / mitochondrial engineering, then 3 years at Stanford on the FreeGenes project (got invited to work at both). Barely passed high school cause I didn't care about my classes there.
- JohnMakin 3y ago
  zot zot

tanseydavid 3y ago

I swear I feel like I'm dreaming this thread.

viciousvoxel 3y ago

That's awesome. I also got hit hard by the science bug (pun intended) as a kid, which I can partly attribute to finding a random virology textbook in an academic bookstore dollar bin. I was obsessed with virology at least until college. I ended up majoring in math in college but made it through Ochem II and did some lab internships before committing to that path. Now I'm a ML/software engineer with a healthy interest in biochem.

tim333 3y ago

Cool! Though it's a bit scary how easy it would be for someone to make something dangerous as mentioned in the nyt article. The 2018 article ends: >“There are really only two things that could wipe 30 million people off of the planet: a nuclear weapon, or a biological one,” .... >“Somehow, the U.S. government fears and prepares for the former, but not remotely for the latter. It baffles me.” I guess we may have seen that kind of thing happen a year later with covid though that would have been government sponsored mucking around rather than DIY if it wasn't natural. Not sure how we stop that happening again?

koeng 3y ago
Personally, I think the threat from the biologics itself is a little overstated. If COVID was released from a lab (I think it was natural), it was most likely due to bad governance and management of the lab. For DIY things - most DNA can be screened. I have had companies offer screening services for about 50k-100k a year. I can't afford that! So hopefully a free service or something near to that comes online.