Imagine this is 1976 (try to block out the bell-bottoms and disco music), and I wrote a blog about a couple of pimple-faced teens who had built this swell micro-computer in their garage. They put the thing in a box and bring it to a local do-it-yourself computing club where a bunch of other computer junkies say things like “that’s totally rad, man”. Yup, they’re computer hackers and two guys like this went on to start Apple Computer. For all of us, life was never the same again. Now fast-forward 35 years.
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| The iPhone's great-great-grandad |
The DIY biotechnology (ie, biohacking) movement has been growing for a few years but is still very much in its infancy. I remember going to a local community college with my dad and seeing him load the punched card machine to get a computer the size of a room do a routine calculation. I could probably do that on my cell phone now. The concept of a world wide web with a blogging program that could transmit my drivel around the world instantly was so far beyond what was possible at that time. We are currently in the “computers as big as a room” phase with biohacking. Doing projects is cumbersome. Some ideas are still beyond the scope of current technology. But it will not be long before the biological equivalent of the PC will be developed and it will rock the world.
Will biopunks cure cancer? Unlikely. But the discovery of new genetic targets for attacking cancer or infectious diseases is a good niche for garage drug hunters. Most of the protein engineering work I do could be done at home with free software on the web, so the theoretical design of biologic drugs is also likely within reach. Another likely application is the development of diagnostic kits. With the big push into personalized medicine, I see huge opportunities there. A biohacker can search the literature for biomarkers for a particular disease, or even try to find them on their own. A few proof-of-concept experiments done in a well-equipped hack-shack (more on these in a future post) and you could have a prototype diagnostic kit. Would you spend a couple hundred bucks for a toaster-sized cube that monitors the detailed health profile of your family? I would. Exposure to a cold virus? You know it on Day 1. Infection brewing? You know about it before it even gets sore, plus you also know what type of infection you have and the resistance profile. Want to make sure you’re your food is all-natural and pathogen-free? No problem. Monitor metabolic pathways for signs of imbalance (very early indicators of a number of diseases)? We need to learn more about these pathways, but in principle this is also very possible. A primitive version of this type of device could probably be made today.
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| The OpenPCR machine: The great-great grandad of ???? |
How about less practical gadgets like the iPod? Designer plants? Plants with leaves that glow in the dark? Well within reach. Carrots that taste like cotton candy? Probably doable. How about genetic genealogy? How fun would it be to try and find DNA samples from long-lost relatives (hair strands?) and map genetic contributions from them. Kids might even be into collecting genes. Pick up a leaf or a feather or a dead bug and process the DNA. Compare genes, find rare and unusual enzymes, make trading cards. It could be bigger than Pokemon! Ok, maybe not, but still, somebody out there is going develop these things and the next Apple Computer is going to be born. Check out the OpenPCR that is being developed by a couple of early biohackers (link)… could this be Apple 1?
Someday I’ll be drinking a glass of cab and telling my granddaughter that back in the old days, I had a whole group of scientists with a lab full of expensive equipment trying to identify and target genes. And it took years. Blah, blah, blah… and she’ll wander off and play with the genetically engineered mouse she made from a kit under the soft light of a bioluminescent tree.
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