## Biopunk ### Biopunk  #### Metadata * Author: [[Wohlsen, Marcus]] * Full Title: Biopunk * Category: #books #### Highlights * Ironically, each discovery could also mean another step taken toward the means to alter that self in ways that stir both hope and horror. (Location 97) * As that avalanche of information has piled up, biologists have remarked upon the striking similarity between the code used to program computers and the genes that encode our living selves. The more geneticists learn, the more tempting it is to think of DNA as the software of life. (Location 129) * Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started their information technology behemoth in a garage. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were part of the original group of hackers in the Homebrew Computer Club when they built their first Apple in the 1970s. Sergey Brin and Larry Page invented Google in a friend's garage. (Location 147) * biohacker who is either careless and unlucky or brilliant and evil could someday theoretically unleash a swine flu variant that resists all treatment by known antivirals and has no off switch. (Location 160) * Aull put herself through MIT working nights at a DNA synthesis company. Creating chunks of genes out of life's basic building blocks for profit may sound like profound, painstaking work. In practice, DNA-synthesis shops do the grunt work for research labs, which outsource the tedious mechanical work of building the same sequences over and over again to free up scientists to generate discoveries. (Location 196) * Still, there was something fanatical about her project. She clearly relished the challenge of doing the work at home—for cheap, relying only on her wits and creativity. She was engaging in what she felt was a more pure kind of science, a curious mind engaged passionately with nature, free of any of the most common ulterior motives: profit, career, prestige. (Location 215) * In practice, this meant building her own gear or buying it on eBay (she bought a $10,000 cell incubator for $90, including delivery). It meant using a rice cooker and a whiskey tumbler to make distilled water ("a high-tech temperature controlled apparatus"). It meant using her cat as her chief safety officer ("If he can't play with it, I can't either"). The upside was that if she could pull her DIY wet lab off, she could do whatever project she wanted. What she wanted to do was hack some genes that could save her life. (Location 220) * (The manipulation of genes by humans goes back much further, to the invention of agriculture. Simply crossing wild varieties of plants and animals until they gained the docile predictability of domesticated life was the first and still the most momentous hack in biology.) (Location 227) * But because its symptoms mimic so many different health problems, it is notoriously tricky to diagnose. Sufferers have died because they were being treated mistakenly for diabetes. (Location 252) * "Everyone has these deep dark genetic secrets. That's just how it is," Aull said. "Knowledge is complicated, but ignorance is not better." (Location 287) * Self-built gene tests also offer the first hints that personalized medicine could mean much more than physicians using gene tests to make more precise diagnoses. Aull sought to learn something profound about herself. Through sheer inventiveness, she tinkered her way to that knowledge. She hacked her genes, and she gained in self-awareness. Perhaps do-it-yourself biology will someday mean a new kind of introspection: (Location 302) * The rise of "antibacterial" as a marketing slogan on soaps exploits the widespread fear of the invisible. (Location 323) * The International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, better known as iGEM, originated out of the bioengineering program at MIT, where Professor Tom Knight developed the idea of BioBrick genetic parts. Knight started his career as a computer scientist but was inspired more than a decade ago to examine biology as if it were just another information-processing system. In 2003 he unveiled a collection of universally interlocking genetic components—DNA "parts" that each do something different but fit together the same way, like Legos. (Location 330) * These are strands of DNA that each perform a specific function. By combining DNA parts of the teams' choosing from the kit, students have engineered devices from blinking cells to banana-scented bacteria to arsenic biosensors. One of the competition's founding principles is a commitment to sharing and collaboration borrowed from the open-source software movement. All parts are documented in the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, an online resource that operates on the "give a penny, take a penny" principle. The registry, maintained at MIT, will send team members DNA parts that they request. Invent a new part? Add it to the registry to benefit everyone. (Location 336) * Cowell has mutton chops and an elfin glint that have helped solidify his reputation as chief trickster among a loose cadre of do-it-yourself bioengineers in the Boston area. They call themselves DIYbio. They have T-shirts, stickers, and an e-mail list with fourteen hundred members that has become biohacking's global hub. (Location 346) * "Being a biz guy, he kept asking me what was the 'end goal' to help him wrap his head around what would motivate folks to tinker with biology," Schick wrote. "He wanted to know if there was a scientific goal or if there were products folks wanted to build." (Location 412) * "Those people on the fringe without an agenda doing it for themselves . . . I expect every now and then, they [will] have a great idea that really works," Cowell said. In science as in most things, he says, he subscribes to the ideal of "let a thousand flowers bloom." "The more actors you have, the more innovation can occur." (Location 427) * wrote in his 2009 book, The Nature of Technology. "But we also immediately ask how natural this (Location 467) * human biology came slowly at first. Physicians of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome each contributed (Location 471) * His notion that all sickness was caused by the "vapors" and imbalances among blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm, aka the four "humors," persisted for more than two thousand years, leading to sadistic, useless (except in the case of hemochromatosis) practices, such as bleeding. (Location 474) * history perhaps solely for Mendel's paper. In his lifetime he remained nearly as obscure as his findings were revolutionary. His paper did not draw widespread interest until three scientists reproduced his results independently of one another at the turn of the twentieth century, years after Mendel's death. Only then did biologists recognize that an amateur horticulturalist had beaten his contemporaries to the truth before scientists knew the race had even started. (Location 523) * Mendel's monastery burned most of his papers after his death because of a dispute over taxes in which he had become embroiled while serving as abbot. Yet his legacy persists, not on the merits of his professional stature but on the power of his idea. Mendel did not need a PhD to succeed. It was enough that he was a geek. (Location 531) * Yet their tinkering was far from innocent playing around. Their use of Franklin's data and the way they obtained it left a bad taste in some mouths, compounded by the scant credit she received, even though her paper detailing her observations was published alongside Watson and Crick's famous account. In the years following Franklin's death from ovarian cancer at age thirty-seven, she became an icon for those campaigning against sexism in the sciences. In Race for the Double Helix, she was portrayed as the third hero, on the verge of unlocking DNA's secret herself but stymied by the unfair obstacles that kept brilliant women from achieving as much as their male colleagues. The atmosphere of suspicion and infighting that had both kept her data behind closed doors and led to its unauthorized release typified an institutional culture that biopunks and many professional biologists agree still afflicts the practice of biology today. Had a culture of openness and data sharing existed at the time, perhaps Franklin's images would have been available already. (Location 580) # Biopunk  ## Metadata - Author: [[Wohlsen, Marcus]] - Full Title: Biopunk - Category: #books ## Highlights - Ironically, each discovery could also mean another step taken toward the means to alter that self in ways that stir both hope and horror. (Location 97) - As that avalanche of information has piled up, biologists have remarked upon the striking similarity between the code used to program computers and the genes that encode our living selves. The more geneticists learn, the more tempting it is to think of DNA as the software of life. (Location 129) - Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started their information technology behemoth in a garage. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were part of the original group of hackers in the Homebrew Computer Club when they built their first Apple in the 1970s. Sergey Brin and Larry Page invented Google in a friend’s garage. (Location 147) - biohacker who is either careless and unlucky or brilliant and evil could someday theoretically unleash a swine flu variant that resists all treatment by known antivirals and has no off switch. (Location 160) - Aull put herself through MIT working nights at a DNA synthesis company. Creating chunks of genes out of life’s basic building blocks for profit may sound like profound, painstaking work. In practice, DNA-synthesis shops do the grunt work for research labs, which outsource the tedious mechanical work of building the same sequences over and over again to free up scientists to generate discoveries. (Location 196) - Still, there was something fanatical about her project. She clearly relished the challenge of doing the work at home—for cheap, relying only on her wits and creativity. She was engaging in what she felt was a more pure kind of science, a curious mind engaged passionately with nature, free of any of the most common ulterior motives: profit, career, prestige. (Location 215) - In practice, this meant building her own gear or buying it on eBay (she bought a $10,000 cell incubator for $90, including delivery). It meant using a rice cooker and a whiskey tumbler to make distilled water (“a high-tech temperature controlled apparatus”). It meant using her cat as her chief safety officer (“If he can’t play with it, I can’t either”). The upside was that if she could pull her DIY wet lab off, she could do whatever project she wanted. What she wanted to do was hack some genes that could save her life. (Location 220) - (The manipulation of genes by humans goes back much further, to the invention of agriculture. Simply crossing wild varieties of plants and animals until they gained the docile predictability of domesticated life was the first and still the most momentous hack in biology.) (Location 227) - But because its symptoms mimic so many different health problems, it is notoriously tricky to diagnose. Sufferers have died because they were being treated mistakenly for diabetes. (Location 252) - “Everyone has these deep dark genetic secrets. That’s just how it is,” Aull said. “Knowledge is complicated, but ignorance is not better.” (Location 287) - Self-built gene tests also offer the first hints that personalized medicine could mean much more than physicians using gene tests to make more precise diagnoses. Aull sought to learn something profound about herself. Through sheer inventiveness, she tinkered her way to that knowledge. She hacked her genes, and she gained in self-awareness. Perhaps do-it-yourself biology will someday mean a new kind of introspection: (Location 302) - The rise of “antibacterial” as a marketing slogan on soaps exploits the widespread fear of the invisible. (Location 323) - The International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, better known as iGEM, originated out of the bioengineering program at MIT, where Professor Tom Knight developed the idea of BioBrick genetic parts. Knight started his career as a computer scientist but was inspired more than a decade ago to examine biology as if it were just another information-processing system. In 2003 he unveiled a collection of universally interlocking genetic components—DNA “parts” that each do something different but fit together the same way, like Legos. (Location 330) - These are strands of DNA that each perform a specific function. By combining DNA parts of the teams’ choosing from the kit, students have engineered devices from blinking cells to banana-scented bacteria to arsenic biosensors. One of the competition’s founding principles is a commitment to sharing and collaboration borrowed from the open-source software movement. All parts are documented in the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, an online resource that operates on the “give a penny, take a penny” principle. The registry, maintained at MIT, will send team members DNA parts that they request. Invent a new part? Add it to the registry to benefit everyone. (Location 336) - Cowell has mutton chops and an elfin glint that have helped solidify his reputation as chief trickster among a loose cadre of do-it-yourself bioengineers in the Boston area. They call themselves DIYbio. They have T-shirts, stickers, and an e-mail list with fourteen hundred members that has become biohacking’s global hub. (Location 346) - “Being a biz guy, he kept asking me what was the ‘end goal’ to help him wrap his head around what would motivate folks to tinker with biology,” Schick wrote. “He wanted to know if there was a scientific goal or if there were products folks wanted to build.” (Location 412) - “Those people on the fringe without an agenda doing it for themselves . . . I expect every now and then, they [will] have a great idea that really works,” Cowell said. In science as in most things, he says, he subscribes to the ideal of “let a thousand flowers bloom.” “The more actors you have, the more innovation can occur.” (Location 427) - wrote in his 2009 book, The Nature of Technology. “But we also immediately ask how natural this (Location 467) - human biology came slowly at first. Physicians of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome each contributed (Location 471) - His notion that all sickness was caused by the “vapors” and imbalances among blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm, aka the four “humors,” persisted for more than two thousand years, leading to sadistic, useless (except in the case of hemochromatosis) practices, such as bleeding. (Location 474) - history perhaps solely for Mendel’s paper. In his lifetime he remained nearly as obscure as his findings were revolutionary. His paper did not draw widespread interest until three scientists reproduced his results independently of one another at the turn of the twentieth century, years after Mendel’s death. Only then did biologists recognize that an amateur horticulturalist had beaten his contemporaries to the truth before scientists knew the race had even started. (Location 523) - Mendel’s monastery burned most of his papers after his death because of a dispute over taxes in which he had become embroiled while serving as abbot. Yet his legacy persists, not on the merits of his professional stature but on the power of his idea. Mendel did not need a PhD to succeed. It was enough that he was a geek. (Location 531) - Yet their tinkering was far from innocent playing around. Their use of Franklin’s data and the way they obtained it left a bad taste in some mouths, compounded by the scant credit she received, even though her paper detailing her observations was published alongside Watson and Crick’s famous account. In the years following Franklin’s death from ovarian cancer at age thirty-seven, she became an icon for those campaigning against sexism in the sciences. In Race for the Double Helix, she was portrayed as the third hero, on the verge of unlocking DNA’s secret herself but stymied by the unfair obstacles that kept brilliant women from achieving as much as their male colleagues. The atmosphere of suspicion and infighting that had both kept her data behind closed doors and led to its unauthorized release typified an institutional culture that biopunks and many professional biologists agree still afflicts the practice of biology today. Had a culture of openness and data sharing existed at the time, perhaps Franklin’s images would have been available already. (Location 580)