[DIYbio] Re: [biocurious] Re: lab-on-a-chip

Matt, see my comments in-line below.

On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 4:53 PM, hbergeronx <hbergeronx@gmail.com> wrote:
> cc: diybio, biocurious, tito, indiegogo (is this a violation of indiegogo
> terms?)
>
> Thomas:
>
> The reason why this is annoying to me, personally, is that you didn't seem
> to do your homework, nor do you exhibit much professionalism.
>
> I can't tell how much of your video or your product is directly copied from
> Pearl Biotech. Is Tito Jankowski aware of this? I think they (Pearl/Tito)
> have done presentations at BioCurious in the past, have an almost identical
> product selling for half the price of your own
> (http://www.pearlbiotech.com/c=1)

I don't see any microfluidic devices on pearlbiotech's front page...
can you give a specific reason you think a transilluminator design
(what looks like all peral biotech has) is being ripped-off?


> and there are at least 2 instructables out
> there on how to make your own transilluminator (
> http://www.instructables.com/id/Pearl-Gel-Illuminator/ ,
> http://www.instructables.com/id/UV-Transilluminator/ ). It's considered bad
> form to repeat the work of others and not attempt to cite that work in the
> scientific community, and considering the accessibility of the
> instructables, the fact that you were creating this amidst the same
> community that originated some of the prior works, this is just uncool.
> SELLING that for twice the price to "greater fools" willing to give you
> money for the work leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. Then, there's the
> ethical and legal question: to what extent did you begin to offer for sale
> something that is open-sourced by Pearl Biotech BY-NC-SA
> (http://www.instructables.com/static/entry/license/BY_NC_SA.html)? Did you
> create it from scratch, or did you license it separately from Pearl? Why
> would Pearl license it to you without removing the competing product from
> their own website?
>
> I don't know if you are sincerely apologizing, or if you think it is a joke
> (the "ha ha" part). But adding haha to an apology negates it and is
> extremely unprofessional. Failure to plan on your part does not give you the
> right to copy content nor use content without permission, especially since
> if the people involved knew about it in advance, we would have been happy to
> help. It abuses our good nature.
>
> If you didn't do your homework with regard to a transilluminator, and aren't
> very serious nor particularly concerned about the ethics involved, why
> should you be a "believable" source for a lab on a chip? You might have a
> really important discovery or invention that could provide a big boost not
> only to patients lives but also to the DIYBio community, yet obscure that by
> showing flagrant disregard for the methods and ethics of science in a very
> public medium, behavior in which you stand to profit considerably. Things
> don't add up.
>
> In my opinion, which you probably don't take very seriously, you should be
> spending your time, money, and skills on working up a scientific paper to
> let others reproduce your work and help to validate it. I would be happy to
> back such an effort. You can turn this around with a simple mea culpa and
> more transparency on your intent and methods.
>
> But this? Does not feel right. Does not smell right. IMO: violates our code
> of conduct. http://diybio.org/codes/, and that of indiegogo
> http://www.indiegogo.com/about/terms.
>
> Everyone: how do you feel about this? Are my concerns ungrounded?
>

Maybe.

If he didn't ask to use the BioCurious logo, or if Patrik doesn't
consent to being in this film, then that's certainly an issue.

And it'd be hard to rip-off transillumination as a general idea, as
any qPCR type reaction (or nucleic acid quantification in general)
will have illumination /trans/ (across) the sample to a detector
(whether camera or your eyes). It definitely doesn't look like
anything Pearl Biotech has done, at least on their home page.

> -matt


--
-Nathan

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