[p2p-research] diy bio machines

[Michel Bauwens]

Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com> Mar 22 12:09AM -0500 ^


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: JonathanCline <jncline at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 11:46 PM
Subject: Re: Mini diybio rant from the blogs
To: DIYbio <diybio at googlegroups.com>
Cc: jcline at ieee.org



> " not low cost lab tools (the costs of the lab
> tools are coming down anyway. Why DIY every single appliance when you
> can buy a used one that works just as good, oftentimes even better?).


The biologists & scientists really miss the mark with this "why do DIY
lab equipment" opinion - although us engineers know better.  Here is
the bio-engineering future:

If a single instrument can be made via DIY, then that means the
engineering is solid and able to be built from a "kit".  If two
instruments can be made via DIY, then that means that these
instruments can be built into a single device from their respective
"kits", using standard engineering integration methods.  The number
one problem facing biology lab instrumentation today is that each
instrument is a monolithic machine: good for one task, and maybe are
only marginal at that.  Re-building these instruments allows both
incremental improvements to be made to the old monolithic machine (for
example: an intranet-enabled thermocycler which provides real-time
data & programming via a web page), and also allows multi-purpose
machines (for example: a combination centrifuge and thermocycler; or,
a combination gel box with imager; or, a combination centrifuge and
thermocycler and gel box with imager).  The long term goal with all
the instrument stuff here is, simply, to create an All-In-One Laserjet-
Printer-Scanner-Fax-Copy machine, except for biology instead of
printing on paper.

At this point, some biologists are excited, while most will say: "But,
I can already do that now.  I even have undergrads to do that for
me."   These biologists are again missing the big, engineering,
picture.   Once there is a multi-purpose device which is intranet
controllable, then that means it's software controllable.  Software is
far more reliable and has greater up-time (talking Unix stability
here, not Microsoft's crashiness) than any undergraduate - it can run
24 hours a day, with different iterations and permutations, 7 days a
week, for statistically better biology results.   For the biologists
still in doubt, I reference: The Robot Scientist --
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/02/robot-scientist.html -- which
for now has results which are slightly exaggerated, yet continued
engineering progress will create much more real success in the future.


To be fair to the biologists: the incumbents of any industry are
usually fearful of such advances because it cuts out a good portion of
their previous job (the busy-work).  Most biology students I've talked
to love to pipette; they can't imagine biology without pipetting; so
to claim that, soon, a machine will do all the liquid-handling for
them and that they will do an entire experiment under software control
by typing up bio-protocol phrases,  not only seems like science
fiction, but also a very scary proposition.  Not much to say in
response.  Technological progress happens regardless of how much
anyone enjoys a particular kind of busy-work, so better to leverage
the technology than get in it's way.   Bring on the machines!


## Jonathan Cline
## jcline at ieee.org
## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223
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