io9
In a few years, your weekend hacking project will involve bits of DNA and a PCR machine instead of a soldering iron or glue. With the help of the Open Wetware Project, and the Registry of Standard Biological Parts Wiki, you too can become an amateur synthetic biologist. But this isn't about evil mad scientist stuff. People using these new open-source biohacking tools are trying create helpful life forms, like insulin-producing bacteria or drought-tolerant crops. Here's a quick introduction to the biohacking tools everybody will be using tomorrow.
Registry of Standard Biological Parts [a wiki]. Start with the tutorial, just to get a flavor of what it means to take standard biological parts from a registry and put them together into a new organism. It's actually a lot simpler than you might think. This parts registry is a tool repository, but also a repository of information about biological parts that people have standarized, codified, and registered. A "part" isn't something like an arm — it's going to be something small, like an enzyme that affects a gene, or a protein that causes a particular biological state. Or perhaps a gene that will make you grow an arm.
Open Wetware Project [a community]. This is a clearinghouse community site for academics, students, and the public to share information about synthetic biology and biological engineering projects. You'll find classes, tutorials, and massive lists of laboratories working on biohacking. It's a great place to poke around and find out what people are really doing to create new life forms — and what their motivations are. Also, if you've got your own project or want to know more about an ongoing project, this the place to go to share ideas.
Programming DNA [a lecture] As we've mentioned before, MIT professor Drew Endy gave a smashing and fun introductory lecture about biohacking a couple of months ago at the Chaos Computer Congress in Berlin. If you want a crash course in how hacking a biological system can be like hacking a machine, load this one into your portable media device of choice and watch it during your commute (but only if you're not driving).
BioBricks Foundation [a standards body]. This is a non-profit formed by people from Harvard, MIT and UCSF in order to create standards for what counts as a "biological part." They're tackling legal and ethical issues, as well as strongly supporting the idea of making all information about biological parts and synthetic biology available for free to the public.
Open Biohacking Kit [via Sourceforge]. Get started on your biohacking project with this free software package. From the Sourceforge description:
This open, free synthetic biology kit contains all sorts of information from across the web on how to do it: how to extract and amplify DNA, cloning techniques, making DNA by what's known as oligonucleotides, and all sorts of other tutorials and documents on techniques in genetic engineering, tissue engineering, synbio (synthetic biology), stem cell research, SCNT, evolutionary engineering, bioinformatics, etc.
Image above is of a creature created with Maxis' forthcoming game Spore.
Comments
Time to build that yeast that can survive in 100% alcohol. No more distillation for me!!
Honestly, there is a simpler way to build new life-forms, and it's more fun, too.
@moff: ...and here I am always making sure that I'm not building new life-forms.
@92BuickLeSabre: I got myself modified just so that crap wouldn't happen. I prefer my life forms to be built in the lab. The coolest baby I know was built in a lab! Oh man she is cute.
@Annalee Newitz: Creeply TMI :P
TMI that I know a baby who is cute? Yeah, who wants to know that?
@Annalee Newitz: We can build her. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionically cool baby. This will be that baby. Cuter than any baby before. Better. Cooler. Cuter.
(I know the reality is even more technologically amazing, but that's still what I like to imagine.)
I think it might be more practicle to use computer/emergent AI modeling for "Lego Life" (did I just make that up?), in as much as biological experimentation take a lot of stuff. Greg Egan wrote a story about a woman who "invents" a life form with a LL modeling program. Can't remember the name of the book yet.
Another awesome post, Annalee.
This site is bleedin' fantastic.
to the writers of io9:
i never heard about a new gawker site site coming about..and i'm on gizmodo all the time (a place where i assume would have mentioned a new gawker site being made and why its coming about)
sooo, maybe this isnt the best place to be asking this question (or maybe it is...a blog site made of many users=artificial life in a sense?)but how did io9 come about? was gawker media looking to start a sci fi site or did one of you guys (the writers) suggest it to them or was there some specific reason they wanted to start one up?
anyway, you guys are already one of my fav sites. i look forward to reading about playing with genetic from my post. finally i can look into creating a fruit that will taste like w/e u want it to!
Well, even if we discount the whole reproduction thing, our bodies are constantly creating new life forms life factories... Our immune systems fight the gazillions of tiny dritters that live on/in us, evolutions ensues, voila!
-Kle.
'like' factories...
'critters'
Damnit. Gonna have to mash my hand on the keyboard to order one of those 'typing wands' at this rate.
-Kle.
The Home Biolab Revolution begins! It's real cool that this science and technology is democratizing.
But, it will also be real scary when bad guys start building bio-weapons with it a few years later. I keep thinking of Herbert's White Plague.
It's real cool that this stuff is decentralizing and filtering out to the public. The Home Biolab Revolution begins!
But it's scary to think that a few years later bad guys will use this stuff to build bio-weapons. I keep thinking of Frank Herberts White Plague.
@Annalee Newitz & 92 BuickLeSabre - Just a heads up, you folks are close to infringing on my "Cute Baby" IP. Next message is from my attorney. All "Cute Baby" bio stuff? Mine. All mine. If you want cute babies, you're going to have to pay me! Prior art my ass.
Thank the godless for tacit knowledge. Good luck with building your own home-grown biohazadous waste. Have fun with the troubleshooting. PCR quickchanges, cloning techniques, restriction digests and ligation can sound simple but in practice, but you are dealing with DNA, not lego. Pas si simple.
"But it's scary to think that a few years later bad guys will use this stuff to build bio-weapons."
They've been using the basic techniques for more than a few years already. The involved materials can be difficult to get, but the science and actual physical capabilities really aren't that hard, if all you're looking to do is make the next smallpox. Once something exists and is heavily documented as the more interesting bacteria, making it again usually isn't difficult.
Actually hacking biology -- making new concepts or at least copying multiple existing ones together -- is going to be more interesting, though.
Thanks for this post Annalee!
I just spent the past hour poking around these websites. Even if I never become a garage Dr. Frankenstein, this information is still fascinating and enjoyable to read.
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