FuturePundit: $10 Device Synthesizes DNA

FuturePundit: $10 Device Synthesizes DNA: "Polymerase chain reactions (PCRs) are widely used to synthesize DNA as part of DNA sequencing work. Dr. Victor Ugaz at Texas A&M University has found a way to speed up the PCR DNA copying process at very low cost.

A pocket-sized device that runs on two AA batteries and copies DNA as accurately as expensive lab equipment has been developed by researchers in the US.

The device has no moving parts and costs just $10 to make. It runs polymerase chain reactions (PCRs), to generate billions of identical copies of a DNA strand, in as little as 20 minutes. This is much faster than the machines currently in use, which take several hours.

The development of cheap miniature devices is the future of biotechnology and is going to do to biotechnology what miniaturization has done to computer technology. Therefore we should expect a huge accelerate of the rate at which biological science advances and the development of very cheap methods of repair of aged bodies."

Know Before You Go

At home genomes:

U.S. scientists are using statistics to identify genetic social interaction traits among animals, thereby finding more productive livestock.

Soon to be handy for those, meet factory clubs, you know like Giant.  

Biotech Hobbyist Magazine

Features:

Tree Cloning

The Biotech Hobbyist Micropropagation Kit will contain everything needed (including further instructions!) except the still air cabinet, pressure cooker, and glass jars.

The Great Ladybug Animation

The Great LadyBug Animation is a database of photographs of ladybugs that have been ordered in quick succession to create a short animation that reveals the intrapopulational variation in the patterns of spots on the insects' wing covers.

Skin Culture

Interested in artificially growing human tissue? The following article is the first installment in a series that will show you how to grow your own skin culture and suggest some very cool projects you can do with it.

Should they’re be laws against these home labs?

MariettaEcon

Just like how some computer businesses or viruses started in a teenagers' garage or room; biotechnology may follow. Due to the cost of hardware falling and genetic information multiplies, bio-hackers are surfacing.  Teenagers can't quite shell out the $50,000 for second hand equipment and basic home-biotechnology lab, but prices are falling. There are a myriad of biology graduates that have graduated and are interested in this. Some have already had success, Agribiotics, which is an agricultural biotechnology firm, was sold for $24 million and it grew from a home run business. A reader from the magazine Biotech Hobbyist, brags that he has created a weed resistant to Roundup. More tell of cloning trees and creating skin-tissue cultures.  

 As interesting as this all sounds, it scares me to know that people have the capabilities to do such things in there homes. With new technology comes the questions of ethical issues and how to handle restraints. Should they're be laws against these home labs? Could this be hurting our economy and/or our environment?  Should there be penalties for wrongdoing?

I think we should allow innovation and freedom, even with personal labs.  The law should strongly encourage personal responsibility however.  Again, I think it's best to be ahead of the curve, lest the politicians take over in a panic. 

The Economist on Life 2.0

At O'Reilly Radar.  

More in Wired:

The era of garage biology is upon us. Want to participate? Take a moment to buy yourself a molecular biology lab on eBay. A mere $1,000 will get you a set of precision pipettors for handling liquids and an electrophoresis rig for analyzing DNA. Side trips to sites like BestUse and LabX (two of my favorites) may be required to round out your purchases with graduated cylinders or a PCR thermocycler for amplifying DNA. If you can't afford a particular gizmo, just wait six months - the supply of used laboratory gear only gets better with time. Links to sought-after reagents and protocols can be found at DNAHack. And, of course, Google is no end of help.

Forget about mobile labs in Iraq that seem to have not existed.  What about a two car garage outside of Detroit? 

When you consider the constitutional stresses terrorists using airplanes have caused, I tend agree with Kevin Dewalt:

Our existing laws, social structures, national organizations, and systems of government will have to be restructured to avoid irrelevance.

Or avoid destruction through catastrophic political reactions.

Stem Cells at Home

Pimm explains:

Here I would like to show, although I do not provide any warranty and can not give any guarantee, that isolating stem cells from the placenta is not more difficult than making a steak, and with proper preparation, investment and timing you can do it even at home or in a rent lab.

The equipment needed is not prohibitively expensive for many people in the US and abroad.

More here:

Would you like to sequence your genome in your garage? To grow your stem cells in the kitchen-lab? To hunt for point mutations just for your own sake? Welcome to the coming world of personal biotech.

Are We Prepared for the Biotechnology Revolution?

Some say no:

I can confidently say that most people are completely ignorant of how different the future will be and how rapidly it is approaching. Our existing laws, social structures, national organizations, and systems of government will have to be restructured to avoid irrelevance.

In no area are these changes more profound than biotechnology. Very soon we will be faced with the world of Do-It-Yourself Biotechnology, what Baris Karadogan correctly calls The Ultimate Empowerment of the Consumer. We will have to deal with new terrorist threats where small groups of people can home-grow biotech and nanotech weapons to wreak massive human destruction. We will be faced with complex social questions our parents couldn't imagine, such as What is a Human Being?

And yet, if these issues get demagogued by political opportunists the technological advances may never come.  Or may not happen in the right places at the right times.  Over regulation and pushing it underground would seem to me to be a mistake. 

Is an advantage of Bush's stem cell shenanigans that while it clearly hasn't stopped stem cell research it has at least started a conversation? 

The Fear

Kevin Dewalt's Blog:

We will soon enter an era where very small groups of people can use nanotechnology and biotechnology to cause massive human suffering.

Certainly true.  But technology only moves one way, and the good guys will have the tools too, no?