The (Up)Rise of the Citizen Scientist
“Knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world.”
-Louis Pasteur
That wisdom came from one of the founding fathers of microbiology who made his revolutionary discoveries on vaccination and disease prevention more than 120 years ago. His words have never been more relevant than today. Our revolution is fueled by synthetic biology’s version of Moore’s Law in DNA synthesis and sequencing costs, and the emergence of community labs and biotech accelerator programs all around the world that empower citizen science.
When the human genome was finally sequenced on the 14th of April, 2003,it cost the Human Genome Project and its collaborators a whopping 2.7 billion USD. Today, those costs have disintegrated. Companies like Oxford Nanopore Technologies have even developed portable, USB-powered DNA sequencers, although they still have some kinks to overcome, they are the first generation products. Like the early computers of the 70’s and 80’s, therewill be better and cheaper versions over time.
At the same time, the company is developing a DNA sequencer which plugs into your iPhone! When the costs finally scale and consumer versions are released, this could quite literally change the way we do scientific research forever.
Technological advances drove down the costs to do scientific research to the point where anyone could build a molecular biology lab with only 500 dollars, an eBay account, and some human ingenuity.
And for more sophisticated projects where more equipment or additional collaboration is needed, biohacker/incubator spaces like BioCurious, Berkeley BioLabs, and CounterCulture Labs exist to fill that niche. In fact, the abundance of high-tech, state-of-the-art facilities are one of the reasons California is such an attractive hub for biotech startups. Of course, it would be ridiculous (and wildly incorrect) to think that California is the only place where such ecosystems exist. In fact, there are many dozens of biohacker spaces springing up all over the world, with new ones popping up every year.
For a nominal monthly fee of 50 USD for students or 100 USD for non-students to help offset the operational expenses, a citizen scientist can have access to virtually every piece of modern biotechnology equipment needed to perform basic genetic engineering, along with a supportive community of entrepreneurs, academic scientists, teachers, and activists to help guide him or her.
Last but not least, new avenues of funding have empowered citizen scientists in ways which we have never seen before. Websites like experiment.com make funding for scientific research more equitable, as projects tend to be funded based on the legitimacy and potential of the ideas proposed rather than just credentials.
Many projects which have been financed through experiment.com crowdfunding have eventually gone on to produce publications in scientific journals. Sometimes these projects even become profitable business ventures. Accelerator programs like IndieBio in San Francisco, and RebelBio in Cork, exist to help transform such projects into sustainable and profitable businesses that go on to raise Seed and Series A financing.
I also want to take this opportunity to to share my own thoughts on RebelBio’s call for applications. The invitation to join Rebellious Biotechnology goes far beyond just enticing you with dangling contracts of gold. Your hands, minds, and hearts are the inventive instruments of society-altering change for the advancement of mankind, and RebelBio is your ammunition. We as a community are passing the torch of human progress on to you, my fellow scientists, revolutionaries, and entrepreneurs. Though RebelBio respects the dedication and perseverance of a doctorate degree, admission to the program is a meritocracy. Unlike other accelerators, RebelBio scrutinises your propositions on the merits of your ideas, not just on your credentials. It is a program made for the true DIY garage scientist who is not afraid to roll up his or her sleeves and get dirty. For the incoming teams, I sincerely wish every applicant the best of luck in joining the uprising, and I look forward to seeing the revolutionary ideas of the next cohort.
It is truly an exciting time to be alive as biology is transitioning from a research discipline to an engineering one. We are witnessing the democratization of scientific inquiry and all the economic and social prosperity that it will bring us. Mankind has now scored a huge victory. The common man has claimed control of the true means of production: life itself.
