Barrett Garese

A few weeks ago I had somebody in school complaining about her eating disorder, Ceiliacs disease or something, and how she can’t eaten certain foods because of it. She has mentioned this before, and frankly I was tired of it, so I spent just *20* minutes on the internet during my lunch period and found a cure hidden in the patent database, and then told her how to use www.e-oligos.com and then www.biohack.sf.net and www.openwetware.org to get the materials she needs from www.labx.com to implement the solution in some gastrointestinal bacteria and cure it herself. Problem freakin’ solved.

A ‘biopunk’ teenager displays how easy it is to access genetic synthesis equipment. (via jamurai)

I’ve come across this before but here’s a source for the quote with commentary attached. It also reminds me of the following,

O’Reilly says most of the action is in D.I.Y. biology — manipulating genetic code the way a previous generation of hackers manipulated computer code. “It’s still in the fun stage,” he says. Just ask Bill Gates. If he were a teenager today, he says, he’d be hacking biology. “Creating artificial life with DNA synthesis. That’s sort of the equivalent of machine-language programming,” says Gates, whose work for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has led him to develop his own expertise in disease and immunology. “If you want to change the world in some big way, that’s where you should start – biological molecules.”

Here’s to You, Biology Hackers. [NY Times] Also worth checking out, DIYBio.

There are also books now - Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life. Think of the possibilities, would you eat meat that you grew in your sink? Maybe not right now.

(via thenoobyorker)

Jesus, I barely understand this and it’s blowing my goddamned mind.

[edit] To be clear: Neither I, nor the author of the original article that cites the quote believes it’s as simple as the above forums makes it out to be, but the concept of wetware genetic hackers and homebrew (genetic) code is what’s blowing my mind.

(via headphonesnotrequired)

Source: biopunk.org