[DIYbio] Counter Culture Labs Kickstarter: infected necklaces, biohacker labcoats & bacterial naming rights!

We are a community of scientists, ranging from amateur tinkerers to biotech professionals, who have been working together to create an open community lab for anyone to learn and engage with biology, the building blocks of life. We believe in the power of diversity and peer-to-peer education; everybody has something to teach and everybody has something to learn. Whether you're ready to start testing out that cutting-edge research idea, or just want to play with some bioluminescent algae, this is the place for you!

Our lab is in a building called the Omni Commons, home of nine other collectives stewarding a space to pool shared resources and collaborate toward social change. Over the past year, we've held over 300 free classes and workshops, ranging from the science of our senses, to a workshop on local soil sampling, to an introduction to molecular cloning. Counter Culture Labs is currently home of: the Real Vegan Cheese project (in collaboration with Biocurious), creating vegan cheese engineered from baker's yeast; Fermentation Station, perfecting homebrewed kombucha, beer, and tasty vinegars; and Bay Area Applied Mycology, whose core current research focus is fungi for soil remediation.

We now want to renovate the lab so that more advanced science can happen in a safe and responsible way. To do this we need a transparent enclosure to keep the space sterile, and an electrical upgrade to power the equipment we've been amassing since we moved in last summer. Most of our rent is paid through membership dues, but accruing members has been difficult as our lab is incomplete. It's vitally important that we keep our classes free and open to the public, but we operate on a shoestring budget - an all-volunteer labor of love and dedication to Open Science. We'd also like to be able to sponsor budding scientists who may not otherwise be able to afford membership.

Your contribution will support a global movement to demystify and democratize biology, putting knowledge and tools into the hands of those who would not otherwise have access. Our biohacking community has already come a long way, and with your help we can keep spreading the spirit and creativity of DIYscience!

- Gratitude from the mad scientists of Counter Culture Labs, a 100% volunteer-run science lab in Oakland, California