DIY biology

Do it yourself biology (DIY biology, DIY bio) is a growing movement in which individuals, or sometimes small informal organizations, change the genetics of life forms, with small resources, and often little or no formal training, oversight by professionals, or regulation by governments. This may be done as a hobby, sometimes called bio-hacking, or for profit, to start a business.

"In the not so distant future, self-aware citizens may manage their own stem cells, grow them in the garage, and store them in the fridge. It could be a form of autonomous medical self-insurance. Incredible as it may sound, the basics of molecular biology - what is DNA, how genetic information is coded, how it turns to RNA, which base triplets fits to which amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, that make up your body - can be learnt within 2 hours. Another intensive two weeks in an official lab with an instructor and you can work with them."

History

The field is an early 21st century phenomenon, begun because of the availability and falling costs of equipment, especially used equipment, and cheap computing.

Motives

The motivations for DIY biology can include cost, entertainment and education.

Synthetic biology

Synthetic biology is a subset of professional biology, but its founders play a historical and ongoing role in the establishment of DIY biology. The definition of synthetic biology has been generally accepted as the engineering of biology: the synthesis of complex, biologically based (or inspired) systems, which display functions that do not exist in nature. This engineering perspective may be applied at all levels of the hierarchy of biological structures—from individual molecules to whole cells, tissues and organisms. In essence, synthetic biology will enable the design of 'biological systems' in a rational and systematic way.

Automated (DNA) construction and standards of abstraction

Abstraction is the process of generalization by reducing the information content of a concept or an observable phenomenon, typically in order to retain only information which is relevant for a particular purpose. It is a mechanism and practice to reduce and factor out details so that one may focus on a few concepts at a time. For example, abstracting “a well-worn, bouncy basketball” to simply “a ball” retains only the information on the attributes and behavior of a general ball. Similarly, abstracting an emotional state to “happiness” or “sadness” reduces the amount of information conveyed about the emotional state. However, these abstractions allow hiding complexity, and using more parts in a simpler design.

In synthetic biology, genetic code is abstracted into chunks, known primarily as biological "parts." These parts allow us to build increasingly complex systems; putting several parts together creates a "device," which is regulated by start codons, stop codons, restriction sites, and similar coding regions known as "features."

Bioinformatics

As in other fields, many programming languages can be used in DIY biology, but most of the languages that are used are those with large bioinformatics libraries. Examples include BioPerl or BioPython, which use the languages Perl and Python, respectively.

Criticism

Most criticism of the field involves potential hazards with lack of oversight by professionals or governments.

External links

• DIYbio.org
• Standard Registry of Biological Parts
• OpenWetWare (wiki)
• An Introduction to Building Standard Biological Parts
• Hackteria: Open source Biology and Biotechnology for artists