Re: [DIYbio] 3D printing medical devices

On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 3:42 AM, Patrik D'haeseleer <patrikd@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, September 27, 2012 6:30:29 AM UTC-7, Michael Turner wrote:
>>
>>
>> > http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18677627
>>
>> ... which is about giving up on biology as a medium for 3D printing,
>> because the cells die, and going with something not alive.
>
>
> Might want to read that again - sounds like you completely missed the point
> on this one.
[snip]

No, I read it through twice. 3D printing of *cells* doesn't work (yet,
anyway). So they do 3D printing of something that isn't alive. I got
that the first time. And it was done in a clinical/formal lab setting.
The problem remains: does *all* 3D printing of non-biological stuff
that COULD be used for DIYbio count as DIYbio, wherever it's done, for
whatever purpose, by whomever, with whatever funding?

> Now, you could argue whether this belongs in a DIYbio wikipedia article,
> since the technique was developed in an academic lab.

Is any DIYbio practitioner actually doing this outside an academic or
industrial lab?

> ... It's definitely within
> the spirit of biohacking in the sense that it uses some great out-of-the-box
> thinking (aka "hacking") and uses some very cheap and accessible tools from
> the maker culture (reprap 3D printer). But it's still done by professional
> scientists (if you count the grad student who probably thought of this
> hare-brained idea as a "professional scientist"), ...

The whole first project for my NPO here in Japan is based on a
hare-brained idea from a grad student who funded his work on
Kickstarter. So I have no particular prejudices there.

> ... and likely with some sort
> of research funding support.

THAT's where one might start drawing the line, I think.

> There's nothing to stop a dedicated DIY team
> from replicating this though, and we've seriously considered doing so in the
> BioPrinter project at BioCurious.

If you can affordably use 3D printing to make some substrate (as in
the above case) or a custom lab equipment component for your DIYbio
projects, that contributes to a body of DIY practice, regardless of
how many millions of public/private dollars went into the original
invention of the technique.

But remember where this started. A hip joint made out of 3D-printed
metal? (I respond to your complaint about my "harping", below.)
Implanted by a professional? Operating under an actionable code of
professional ethics, on top of a body of government regulations? In an
institutional (clinical) setting? (They aren't doing hip replacements
at home or in educational community centers, last I checked.)

> Here's another example of a borderline case of what you might or might not
> consider DIYbio / biohacking, depending on which definition you adhere to.
> Russel Nyches, who is doing a PhD at UC Davis, has been developing some
> really cool tools using 3D printing and Arduinos, including a 3D printed
> bead beating adaptor that mounts onto a Craftsman automatic hammer, custom
> 3D printed 96-well plates, and a wireless, tweeting Arduino based pH
> monitoring platform.
>
> Again, you could argue that this is all part of his "job" (i.e., being a
> grad student and getting a PhD) and therefore not DIY. But I think you'd be
> missing out on a lot of really interesting development within the broad
> spectrum of DIYbio if you took that narrow an interpretation.

There's already a way, one that's Wikipedia
policy/guideline-compliant, to not "miss out" on this kind of thing. I
would have no problem with citing, and quoting from, Nyches'
publications in a Wikipedia article about DIYbio -- IF he gives credit
to the DIYbio movement where it's due.

In fact, I'd love it if there were a whole article section on any such
phenomenon. If DIYbio is a kind of "spin-off" from institutional
biotech research, it should also get credit for any "spin-in" that
happens. But on Wikipedia, credit has to be [[WP:V]] - verifiable from
reliable sources. Just saying, in effect, "Hey, looky! Some people in
some labs are doing some stuff that we did first!", in a Wikipedia
article -- you can't do it. That's [[WP:OR]] - "original research",
which is not allowed.

> PS: Stop harping on the 3D printed hip replacement. I think most people here
> agree with you that this was not a great example of DIYbio.

Perhaps most would agree, but where's the vote tally? If some of the
more interested list members joined the Talk page discussion for
Wikipedia's DIYbio article, we could determine whether your intuition
about their feelings was correct, by relying on a Wikipedia editorial
process. If there were significant differences of opinion on that Talk
page about what's within scope, and no Talk page article consensus
emerged, we could even subject the discussion to long-evolved
processes for settling matters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#Disputes

Look: I know I sound like the old joke: "I'm from the government, and
I'm here to help." But articles get good on Wikipedia, and stay good,
only because of a degree of formal process, evolved by volunteers --
DIYgov, if you will.

I'd love for DIYbio and other related articles to reach Featured article status.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_criteria

But note the stringent requirements of section 1. We can all easily
point to articles on Wikipedia that flunk 1(a)-1(d). As for 1(e),
well, when you have people on this mailing list asserting that DIYbio
ethics only apply to biohackers who don't want to violate them
(rendering the concept of "ethic" utterly vacuous) the stage is set
for getting biohacking articles listed in another place instead:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars

> .... I seem to remember a story of someone who
> 3D printed part of his own anatomy from a cat scan, and then brought the 3D
> print to his doctor - I think that would definitely qualify as DIY + bio,

Only if you conflate medicine with biology. Medicine is not a science
-- as several doctors I know will firmly assert. It's a profession.
Nor is it a branch of engineering. It *uses* techniques and
technologies inspired by a branch of biology called medical science.
But perhaps not as much as it should.

> even though in the end it still involved a real MD to interpret the results.

... an MD who probably did the diagnosis seat-of-the-pants, rather
than rely on scientific criteria. Expert systems built in the late 80s
outperformed most doctors when programmed for diagnosing specific
ailments. Doctors rejected them as an infringement on their
professional judgment.

Medicine is not a science. It is not engineering either.

The guy who 3D-printed his own tumor or organ from CAT-scan data
didn't necessarily know the first thing about biology or biotech.

And home CAT-scanners aren't on the horizon in any case.

Regards,
Michael Turner
Project Persephone
1-25-33 Takadanobaba
Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 169-0075
(+81) 90-5203-8682
turner@projectpersephone.org
http://www.projectpersephone.org/

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward
together in the same direction." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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