Re: [DIYbio] Re: How to advance a DIYBio lab beyond the basics.

Wow, you must be pretty accident prone or work around accident prone people!

What you posted is extremely anecdotal.

Instead let's look at reality

99.9% of chemicals(if people run PAGE gels acrylamide is toxic when it isn't crosslinked which occurs if they make their own gels but that's about all I can think of) and materials used in molecular biology are non-hazardous in most reasonable quantities(sure you can hurt yourself if you eat too much NaCl but the LD50 is >12g/kg!!!). From running PCR to cloning genes to growing bacteria and yeast you could literally eat everything even the plastic and nothing bad would happen.

Biohackers and DIYBio people don't work with needles usually and even if they do it is rarely or never in the case of using them on mammals. 

Berkeley Lab Accident statistics for the past 6 months http://www2.lbl.gov/ehs/safety/accidentStatistics.pdf

22 people of > 3,200 (most of them ergonomic injuries(using the keyboard too much) or slips and falls!) 0 accidents or injuries reported for Biosciences

You are seriously doing something wrong if all that shit is happening to you and your colleagues.

Finally, what you are saying is that people are allergic to stuff and so we shouldn't do stuff. Because people are allergic to stuff does that mean they shouldn't goto restaurants? the gym? Cook(because they might inhale stuff, ya' know, that they might be allergic to).

Please stop your fear mongering.

Josiah Zayner, Ph.D.

The ODIN, Founder & CEO

http://the-odin.com

On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 7:53 AM, ukitel <marco.r...@gmail.com> wrote:

I actually have a background in biology (10+ years now)

Now, I agree that if you keep it to hobby level and do experiments "where you can reasonably predict the outcome", there aren't many things that can go wrong. And I'm all in favor for better regulation and whitelists.

But I have to say that I've had lab accidents and I have collegues which have had lab accidents.

Just some examples from the top of my head:

splashing stuff on yourself (did it with blood, cells and mutagenic chemicals)
inhaling stuff (happened to me while weighing chemicals)

injecting something in your fingers (surprisingly common when you work with needles)

allergy or even anaphilactic reaction to chemicals (rare but I know at least 1 story like this)

weird inflammation reaction in lymphnodes (collegue working with bacteria and got surgery to remove it)

None of these things caused a permanent damage, but what if that happened during a DIYbio workshop to one of the participants?

Are we waiting for the first anaphilactic reaction in a workshop with mushrooms or are we starting to talk together about how to handle/tackle/prevent this?

I don't think that the rarity of these events is a sufficient justification to ignore their possibility.

Especially because if this movement gets much bigger, as I hope, these unfortunate events will happen no matter how rare.

On Saturday, 7 January 2017 21:02:59 UTC+1, Mega [Andreas Stuermer] wrote:

What is this "inherent danger in tinkering with biology". Mostly when I hear this phrase it comes from poeple without a background in biology.

There are certain experiments, where you can reasonably predict the outcome, especially if hundreds of labs have done it before. Like GFP or, say, vanillin biosynthesis. At least if you do it in a contained environment where everything is autoclaved that leaves the lab, I am yet to hear any reasonable explanation why this is not unregulated or there is not some whitelist.


 




On Saturday, December 3, 2016 at 5:22:49 PM UTC+1, 210jrd wrote:

OK, we have built our lab, fairly well equipped (lots of ebay and purchases from China and India!) and done some basic PCR and electrophoresis testing and even done a small class in Transformation/recombination and a "crime" class with Electrophoresis.

 My question to DIYBio groups in general is where do we go to plan out future development of a DIYBio group and keep interest of members with practical ongoing projects (Basically non-commercial) so that we don't just sit looking at this lovely equipment and have meetings discussing aspects of microbiology?

The information on ongoing paths of DIYBio seems sparse at present and I for one would love to see more ideas coming in of a practical nature that will not break the bank. I do not wish to continually grow coloured e coli in Petri dishes.

Many of us do not have the luxury of a MSc or PhD team leader and must advance in small steps but some advice from those moving ahead would be great. Garage based DIYBio has got to the stage where most equipment (other than sequencers) is now easily obtained. Chemicals and microbes are a cost factor but ideas for the future pathways of DIYBio are seemingly either vague or lacking. Input welcome and if you can disdainfully prove me wrong,with evidence, I will happily admit this topic to have been a waste of time. John D

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