Creating a community of biohackers

Dan Grushkin

Ramy Kim

RK: I am currently the president of Counter Culture Labs. It's a biohacking lab here.

DG: I am the executive co-director of Genspace. I run a progrma called Biodesign Challenge. If you don't know Genspace, then, we're a community lab that started now 10 years ago. Almost 10 years ago. We're based in Brooklyn. That's what I have to say about that.

RK: So basically one of the OGs.

DG: We're old. Yeah.

RK: We were scrambling right before we came today... we were wondering what we wree going to talk about. I believe we were asked to talk about community building. Koenie made a good point- we want to make biotech accessible for everyone. The biggest thing for me and I am assuming Dan too because we got to talk for a whole 15 minutes before we got here-- when we talk about democratizing sicence, which is one of the ethoses of our lab, who are we actually doing this for? And when we say we want to make this accessible for everyone- who is everyone? Is that everyone with a facebook account? Is it everyone who has access to leisure time? What about a mom with 2 jobs and 4 kids? ((Why? Do they even have time?)) They exist. That's something that-- those are some critical questions that we as a biohacking community and we as practicioners of diybio could start thinking about. We provide physical space for us to connect.

DG: I think it's achallenge for any biohacking lab to reach as many people as possiloe and excite them about the technology. Genspace is in the neighborhood that is... largely in transition. It's a latino neighborhood where a lot of buildings are being gentrified and torn down. What we tried to do is get everyone into our space as far as much as possible to get at least handson experience to try biotech in whatever capacity for the first time. When you think about diybio or biohacking or community labs, these are local commercial institutions. Genspace is in Sunset Park Brooklyn and we serve NYC. On occassion, people come from far and wide.

RK: Really good fun in Sunset Park.

DG: And fantastic tacos. But yeah, I think, yes, we're there to serve everyone but we're a neighborhood institution and you need to consider this when you run these commercial spaces. How do you get people in your neighborhood and then radiate outwards and learn what you have to offer. Thta's a big question.

RK: Why do we care?

DG: The way that I was hoping we would start is by trying to figure out what the vision we have for community biology is... what we do we want from these spaces like Counter Culture Labs? What about from Genspace or any of the labs out there. What I'm seeing is that there are constraints that are co-existing in the diybio movement when started. It was very easy to have conversations about hwat we want as a collective. A lot of the originals aren't there anymore. It's time to readdress thaqt question-- what do we stand for? What are we about? Can we come together around key pillars and points for our companies? What I would say- and I would ask you the same question-- is, that, I would like to see neighborhood community labs in every neighborhood. I would like to see families coming into that space, just like any other community center where they would have a game or a different lens or through which to connect with the living world. I think that's really important, and it's not just important for the progress of science as discussed, but important for the progress of society at large. Once we connect those two, we have something very palatable.

RK: So you are asking me the same question? What was it?

DG: What would you say your vision is for the future of community biology labs?

RK: Well, the current barriers need to be broken down. One is cost. A couple of the labs, we offer scholarships and stipends or membership stipends. If you can't afford the monthyl membership. That's just one area of access. A second area of access is really like... that our name would be...a biohacking space in general should be known anywhere, in a neighborhood, as a community resource. Not something that just some people use in their own time, but truly a community resource, ideally for the commons but sometimes we have to think about how we support ourselves. I want to see a kid say biohacking is so dope that he dotesn't want to do anything else. That would be true success to me. I want the mom with 4 kids, who has a job, and 2 kids, how can she be part of the biohacking movement even though that's not typical? How can she give birth to genetically modified children? We never know the kinds of experiments that are going to come through with those people. We are cognizant that people are coming from different backgrounds but you might have specific ways of doing things- but this idea of self-starting... we tend to have lots of common even though we come from differnet backgrounds.

JZ: Is that safe?

RK: Where is that voice coming from? Are you talking about having a mom come?

JZ: People who are inexperienced.

RK: Dan and I as people who run labs we try to structure the groundwork so that we make it safe so that someone inexperienced can come in without a lot of experience and they feel immediately welcome. That's part of our job. I think Dan feels the same way.

DG: Is what safe? is our lab safe? Give me some more context for that question so I can answer it a little more.

Q: Is having untrained people in the lab safe?

DG: Absolutely. I think of Genspace as a teaching lab primarily. When you look at our programming, we have really two things going on that are aimed at lots of different people from different backgrounds. We have the membership model, and we also do workshops. As a teaching space, it's really obviously important to spend time with the people who are in your lab, making sure that they are operating in a safe way. Primarily that's so that their experiments work. The bacteria in those dishes is more sensitive than you are. But also I think it's just part of the lab technique. Are they safe? Yes, absolutely. As a teaching lab, we are a BL-1 facility which is important for us because we have lots of different groups coming in. On top of that, we have membership. The members work on lots of different projects-- plants, bacteria, all sorts of stuff. A lot of things that make you safe are the same things that make sure that your spores or your whatever organism is is not infecting other people's dishes. It's just a part of the larger ecosystem of just....

Q: How do you ensure that community labs practice the same kind of rigor that you find in PhD institutions? How do yo uget someone past the sexy science into the hard rigorous stuff?

DG: I think that's two questions.

RK: At Counter culture labs, we are also BL-1. We just revamped our safety quiz. We do have safeguards that we suss out potential members. There's a provisional period just to make sure you're cool and you're not going to blow anything up... There's this mutual looking out and we rely on this for sure if you are going to do your own expderiments. In terms of rigor, that really is, that's not-- that's not for me to decide. The rigorness of your study or experimentation is not for me to decide. That's alomost a hey, I only want lab quality work that you are going to produce in this community lab- honestly I think that would discourage experimentation.

DG: We're not trying to emulate academia by any means. We're both an alternative and partner to academic labs. I'll give you an example. We have a number of artists working in our space. I don't think they are trying to extend academia. They are trying to explore how to work iwth an organism and that could be a very different process for an artist or designer. We encourage that.... DNA barcoding.. I don't know if that furthers the academic science agenda. But in terms of personal exploration- which is what happens in these spaces- it's incredibly enriching. And we need to respect that just as much as what goes on in terms of furthering academic research.

RK: Being able to provide a space where you can do rigorous work, even among the other members and being able to talk openly about it... This has to do with being a welcoming place... Hey can you tell me more about this process or this method? How did you amplify it? Blah blah blah. You can't do that unless you have a good repor with all the members. I don't want to stagnate any of your stuff, but we do actually, want to be able to provide a space where you can do rigorous science, which is documented, reproducible, and shareable and document your mistakes so that other people can pass on your knowledge as well.

DG: It goes back to the question of what is a community biology lab for. It means a lot of different things to different people. These spaces are a platform for those people togo where they are going to go. .... It should be part of our mission.

RK: Before we take your question... we're using our strength in DIY.. the whole point of that is that we know how to hack things and do it cheaply. We're at a unique intersection where we can do this for a school of underpriviledged kids. If we have that knowledge, then why not?

Q: ... I'm affiliated with CCL. I'm interested in the science. But I'm interested in the organizational and managerial aspects of running a community lab.

DG: These things are not in conflict with each other. In the early days of DIY, there was this sense of... you're either one of us or you're a newbie and stay away. I think we graduated way past that. What I see a lot in our space is that the person with professional interests who is working on their project so they can have that proof-of-concept.. they are also interactive with people who are new to the community. Often, what I see, is that they are going to take the time out from what they are doing to help that person. What I would like to see is once that person has enough lab skills, I would like to see them become the assistant, and be a mentorship program. I think that's the way to go. We often require for new members who don't have a biology background, we require them to take our biohacker bootcamp classes so that they are already onboarded with some skills. On top of that, we have some community projects. Maybe ytou don't even have a project yet... but maybe they just join the community group

((I'm the wicked witch of the west and this is water.))

RK: I haven't had to actually program but maybe oh you should definitely talk to this person... sometimes I make some nudges and a little handholding sometimes but for the most part it's actually, it's beautiful to see because there's free and open knowledge sharing that is neither top-down or weirdly power dynamic... just people who are genuinely talking with each other and interested in the subject matter. We have an internship progrma but we're trying to figure out how to best do that. We're all volunteers at the community lab. Everyone has stuff to do outside of the lab.

DG: We have 5 staff now. It's really hard to sustain. It's completely worth it. I don't thin kthis is the only way to go with a DIY lab. But it has been important for what we have been able to achieve at Genspace. I think the biggest problem for this right now is a model is a buinsess model and what's the proposition? Are you just going to be writing grants all day? We do that a lot. Are you going to find some programming that pays a lot of money? Every year, someone says why don't we do birthday parties. Or hey why don't you cater to parents who want their children to have better resumes? Why not charge an arm and a leg for that? Every year, we say no. Who wants to do that? I certainly don't. This is one of the challenges I think as your institution grows.

RK: I just want to touch on the point of catering to everyone. My wetlab skills suck compared to a lot of people in here. In some ways, Dan and I discussed this too, we're outsiders in a group of outsiders. And so, that's, I tried to use that to my advantage and think about how do I appeal to someone like me who might have been scared besides my initial mushroom bag making workshop to actually becoming super engaged and confident in the lab space and also running a lab space. That happened within a span of less than a year actually, maybe 6 months. I'm learning as I go. I do know enough science. I'm an environmental health scientist so I'm able to take that rigor and transfer it to - what would a molecular biologist or bioengineer want to know and what is the equpiment they need to make their experience optimal?

DG: My background is journalism. I had zero lab experience when we started. By the 3rd year, I was no longer doing lab work any more. I was just trying to understand how to organize these spaces and figure out how these spaces function in a larger society. I spent a llot of time going to Washington DC and defending the right for these spaces to exist and to convince policymakers that these spaces are a community resources not threats and I still do a lot of that work. For me, and mind me, I still enjoy getting my hands wet-- but I'm not the one in the lab. I think these spaces are also places to have a larger conversation about what biotechnology is and where it belongs in our society. It's the ideal space for that. You get everyone from every background sitting around the table and that often doesn't happen in an academic setting and it certainly doesn't happen in a corporate or industrial setting. Here's abeautiful moment where you can have people from lots of backgrounds and ethics and beliefs and religions to have a really deep conversation about what they want from this stuff. That's not going to happen anywhere else. That's the beautify of these spaces... and diving into the technical aspects of these projects. It can also be societal, and that's important too.

Q: Howdy. I'm the vice president of a biohacking space out in Texas. I just wanted to ask what y'alls thoughts were on y'alls in terms of approaching the community that you guys know that most 95% of people coming through a lab or biohacking space... they aren't doing a lot of sophisticated... some are, but most are homeschool kids like going to get access to a lab and doing things like that. Some hobbyists sometimes. Someone wanting to learn how to brew their own beer. Or an artist trying to make pictures on agar plates. How do... just in general, or the entire community, how do we approach the community? When people here BSO-1 lab, biosafety level 1, instead of hearing a workshop or a metalworking workshop which is what really these spaces are- a workshop for biology-- what do you, how do you, as soon as you hear those words, people think of a zombie apocalypse or some next plague or something like that. In terms of that way, how do you approach the community? How do you express a homeschool kid just excitement in their eyes when they see gel electrophoresis working? Or some hobbyist seeing kombucha growing? How do you express that to the public? When the public hears BSL-1, they think zombies.

RK: You probably just don't go up to someone and say come to my BSL-1 lab. That's kind of weird. But, you can probably talk about, hey, do you want to know what's sitting in your kombucha? If that person knows what kombucha is and is stoked about that and microorganisms... CCL is looking at the isolates... Patrik and other people are looking at the isolates of kombucha. We take a specific aspect nad spin it so that it might be interesting or relevant to your life. My background is in public health and for that reason I like to talk about public health. When I had a group of 5 kids from east oakland and spent 4 hours with me- I wanted to instill in them that they were interested in a career in biology but I wanted to tell them that there are alternative paths to research but also give them social context of the stuff they decide to actually pursue as a biologtist can have real meaningful change. I talked with them about the open insulin project andx a background about why this is interesting and important, oh your aunt has diabetes yeah she's probably pretty sick don't you want to help her. It contextualizes all this information. You have to figure out what the neesd of your community are. It's not strictly biological. We have a huge air quality problem here. So it's perfect for citizen science projects. Let's get some arduino stuff together and figure out where we are going to put this data on a platform. If it matters to your community, then it matters to you. You have to show up to certain things and tlak with people and always reach out to the people who you don't expect maybe, that would show up to your lab.

DG: YTou should note that the exploratorium has a BL-2 facility in the museum. I don't see anyone running out of there with their hair on fire. I think there's a few things that need to happen. There needs to be places where people can see examples of the good work that comes out of our community labs. There's no centralized location where people can find that, so there's no place ofr us to point them to. We also need to be aware that this is a continual effort. I thought this problem was solved 5 years ago when we put our 7 myths document out, which I thought quieted the regulatory community about what was coming out of the media. It was not permanent. It needs to be continual work in that regard. It came back with a vengeance. You need to be inviting new people to the lab all the time. You need to come up with programming for the newbies. The easiest and oldest thing is the strawberry DNA extraction. It's totally easy, it's easy, you see DNA in a way that you have never seen before. I see every time when we do it with kids these kids say wow we see snot but the parents have their eyes go openand they see this thing they have heard about in the news and that changes everything for them. The more you engage outwards, ythe more you invite people in, the easier time you are going to have and frankly more people will come because of that. It's not easy.

Q: I am thinking about going into a PhD program. Do you think these labs could replace or supplement grad schools? Or do you think the loss of knowledge by not going to grad school would be too great?

RK: Yes.

DG: I think they offer two different things. If your interest is in really going deep into a specific area of biotech, or biology, and wanting to be part of a community of people who are trying to push a certain research agenda forward, then academia makes a lot of sense. If you are osort of wanting to short-circuit that entire structure, and just pursue something because it's your heart desire, then maybe community labs. It's ultimately a question of career, which is very personal. A lot f people coming to our space are either trying to build up their careers in biotech and transition into a job, I've seen that happen. One of our community members had zero background in biology but he was very excited and spent a lot of time with us and then he was picked up by Mt. Sinai and he combined his knowledge about biology and programming and that was a good outcome. BUt really it depends on what you're interested in and what timeline you're looking for. For me personally, I was reporting and interviewing scientists and just wanted to try it for the first time, and then I realized I would never be able to try it and I would have to start a degree at undergrad and that felt like shit. If I ever wanted to do my owne xperiment, it would take 10 years. So just learning how to do a trnasformation that first time in a community lab, that was a fantastic experience. It led to a lot of other things about biology which had nothing to do with pursuing a career in academia.

Q: Do community labs provide an outlet to develop proprietary technology? Or is it just about engagement? Or if you develop something marketable, how does intellectual property work?

RK: For our lab, we require that your experiment is open-source. However there are places that, even in the Bay Area, that will allow you to do your proprietary work. It will probably cost a lot more money. If you are a member who might be interested, we might ask what part of your experiment would you be comfortable with it being open. Use othat to your advantage too, because we have so many people with PhDs, in our membership who can actually guide you. Use that as a strength because that's what we're saying- open science is the way. So use that to like actually make your work stronger is what I would tell you and really consider, would you want yours to be closed or open.

DG: There is deep science happening in our spaces. I want to reiterate that. But not everyone is interested in that, and that's okay. Every lab is different when it comes to IP. Genspace had this conversation 10 years ago. We decided that people working in our lab would take no IP. We did not have a requirement about open science. I know there's a number of labs that also take no IP and encourage entrpereneurship. We've had incredible success with companies coming out of Genspace. Opentrons is a perfect example. There was a designer and bioengineer in our space, they created a first prototyype robot, for an iGEM team. That's now a 60 person company. They are in 2 countries. They are selling robots all over the world. It just so happens that those two people met in our space. I have Merck scientists that got tired of working at Merck and had a brilliant idea and they are now funded and have their own lab facility and that's also ... the folks at Biocurious.. I saw Maria here.. 32 companies have spun out of Biocurious? More? Okay, that's juts unbelievable. I think that's just part of our ecosystem and we should leverage that. The beginners have those people who have that knowledge, and learn from them, and also it's almost like, if you have a company, you can get out of it as well, which everyone wins out of that.

Q: Thank you.