Exploring Community Labs

Along our journey we were fortunate to meet a great number of intesting as well as dedicated people belonging to various fields, companies and societies. Out of all people we met, the "Makers" from several Hackerspaces who demonstrated their work at the [http://igem.rwth-aachen.de/2015/index.php/Team:Aachen/Practices/Maker_Faire MakerFaire] in Hannover, facinated us the most. Their creativity and commitment for DIY Biology inspired us to take a deeper look into the DIY community or, to be more precice, the Community Labs Scene.

Established in America - Novel to Europe

Fascinated by DIY Hardware

Across the USA, you will find a wide spread of Community Labs. These open labs allow thousands of people to experience and get an understanding of biology. Furthermore, they provide an open platform that promotes discussions about life sciences. In contrast, there is only a tiny number of Community Labs in Europe, which are only scarcely connected.

We therefore started to contact and connect Community Labs in Europe. Owing to their polarizing and educating character, the introduction of synthetic biology into the Community Lab Scene could have a huge impact on society. In cooperation with the Community Labs we met, we already reached a broad variety of open minded people of all ages. By helping and learning from each other we can bring the spirit of iGEM to everyone. Join us in exploring the exeptional world of Community Labs.

Click on the tiles below to navigate through the four main sections of our Community Lab experience.

First evaluation of the growing Community Lab Scene

Pre-discussion with iGEM Team Darmstadt

iGEM Team Darmstadt in Aachen

Beyond literature research, we wanted to get more inside information about Community Labs. Luckily, Fabian, a member of the Darmstadt iGEM Team is a member of a BioHackerSpace, too!

At the 12th of June, Team Darmstadt was visiting us in Aachen. That day, we took the chance to have a general discusson about the potential and perception of the growing number of Communitly Labs in Germany and Europe. This discussion helped us to sharpen our knowledge and gave us some new aspects about this recent trend. It was particularly interesting, to get to know more about the intrinstic motivation why to join a e.g. a BioHackerSpace and to hear the most prominent concerns that these labs have to face.

The elaborated outcome of our discussion is shown at the [http://igem.rwth-aachen.de/2015/index.php/Team:Aachen/Collaborations collaborations section] of our wiki.

Discussions and Interviews at an interdisciplinary Symposium

In June, we were invited to a symposium called Synthetic Biology - Opportunities for interdisciplinary Research from Biology to Engineering. We gladly accepted and presented our project to a broad spectrum of scientists. The following discussions lead to a huge amount of feedback on our bioreactor as well as our biological project.

Interviewing Jay Keasling during the symposium

In addition, we were extremely lucky to not only discuss our project, but also get an interview with the keynote speaker of this conference, Jay Keasling. Subsequently, we recorded several additional conversations with other speakers as well as guests of the symposium. On the one Hand, these interviews touched some general questions about the progress and perception of synthetic biology. On the other hand, the main topic was the risks and benefits of community labs. We therefore gatherd a wide spectrum of opinions, which contributed to and influenced our human practices project.

To sum up, in covering a variety of aspects concerning Community Labs we had now aquired enough background knowledge, that there was only one logical step to be the next. We had to meet a real Community lab. Fortunately, we already made friends with some members of the "Technik Garage", the Community Lab we had the pleasure to meet at the MakerFaire.

Meeting the Technik Garage - Makers of Passion

Curious, how the reality matches our expectations, we invited the “Technik Garage”, a German Community Lab to visit us in Aachen.

Our three main objectives were:

1. Support Community Labs by integration into a network of universities and companies
2. Inform European Community Labs about iGEM and facilitate cooperations with iGEM teams
3. Discuss biosafety standards and compare those of Community Labs to those in Universities

The "Technik Garage" joins the Medlife network

To fulfill the first objective, we invited Dr. Jansen from the Life Sciences network MedLife. This Network connects around 35 biotechnological and medical companies, 12 research groups and 17 other companies like consultants, patent lawyer, and software provider. It is designed to perceive the needs of their members and find solutions within or outside of the network. As a result of our discussion, Dr. Jansen agreed to add the Technik Garage to the Medlife network, which everybody appreciated as a win-win situation.

Subsequently, we discussed how synthetic biology can be used in Community Labs. Since the members of the Technik Garage regularly teach in different schools, as well as in their own lab, they were really interested in possible synbio school projects. As a consequence of sharing experiences in teaching biology, we revised the school project of the iGEM Team Aachen 2014 as well as a suitable protocol of a bachelor's practical course. Using the provided material, they are able to reach hundreds of students and teachers within the next years and thereby spreading the spirit of synthetic biology.

If you ask the public about Community Labs, biosafety is one of the most prominent concerns. To evaluate biosafety aspects of Community Labs, we invited the iGEM Team of Paris Saclay to join us via Skype. Together, we discussed differnt approaches to guarantee a high safety level of Communitly Labs. During this dialog, we focussed on the applicability of the two containment strategies of iGEM Paris Saclay, especially concerning the use in Community Labs.

Schoolprojects, exchange of DIY hardware or simply an open discussion; how to can we help each other?

"How to achieve high safety and security?" - Skyping with the iGEM Team of Paris Saclay

At the end of the day, we had

1. facilitated the joining of the "Technik Garage" into the Medlife network,
2. provided material for teaching about synthetic biology and
3. learned, how exemplarily the "Technik Garage" cares about biosafety.

To get a second impression, idealy of a lab with quite distinct features, we decided to visit the Waag society, a famous dutch Community Lab that offers a biohack academy.

Meeting the Waag society - Infinite Possibilities

We visited the Waag Society at one of the regular open Wetlab days. Every Tuesday evening, interested guests are invited to have a look at their FabLab as well as biological lab and are encouraged to participate in various open discussions addressing a wide spectrum of scientific topics.

DIY hardware built by members of the Waag Society

Michelle, a biotechnology student from Italy and currently intern at the Waag Society, presented the amazing DIY hardware they assembled and told us about his ambitious project "BioStrike". He aims to design and distribute a toolkit to empower citizens to develop new antimicrobials. Because of the substantial overlap with the last year's Aachen iGEM project, we had an intense discussion about the great danger of the proceeding speading of antibiotic resistances.

Afterwards, Lucas Evers, who is leading Waag Society's Open Wetlab gave us a tour through the castle tower, the Waag Society inhabits. Quite quickly, a diverse discussion group evolved, mainly consisting of students, artists and scientists. Some attendants were regular guests, others visited the Waag society for the first time.

Residence of the Waag Society

Back in the main room Michele told us, that Pieter planned to participate in the iGEM competition next year. That was a great coincidence, because we had hoped to convince Pieter to participate in the iGEM during our visit. Therefore we reached our first goal, without even meeting him.

mind blowing discussions about biohacking and bioart we ever contributed to started. most of the regular guests were actually artists, who collaborate with the Waag society. We talked about their projects which ranged from simulating a biological network with actors to

Waag society is connected to other community labs. official funding

Discussing Bioart and public engagement

We learned a lot about bioart and how the Waag society infuses open discussions about synthetic biology and biotechnology using bioart as a starting point.

Another big project of the Waag society’s WetLab is the biohack academy.

This academy teaches everybody interested how to set up a laboratory based on DIY hardware. Not only private persons, but also new found community labs use this academy. global,

Apart from this biohack academy, they were also interested in the teaching lessons in synthetic biology we shared with the Technik Garage.

Conclusion

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