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08/21 : DIY in synthetic biology

What about DIY in synthetic biology?

We started the debate by watching the diybio video headlined “DIYbio in 4 minutes”, a presentation by Andy Mac Cowell, an active diyist from the DIY bio Boston group.

First, I have to make a notification about this post. That talk leads us to something a bit discussed, like a controversy. My own opinion about DIY and amateurs in science is not the point here, even if my graduated work is mostly about that question. Here, I just try to transcribe what I presume understandable in the team's position. I don't share the team's mind but that is not the point.

I wanted to know more about the reception of DIY practices in biology for the team because of several question. The iGEM concourse seems to be a way to experiment, to test some new way to make science : young students spend their summer time on a own-build project, the teams are undergraduated, the project are often innovative or stimulant. The DIY in biology claim that kind of alternative way to make science as one of their goals. So, for the team, regarding the iGEM science making experimentation, what about a daily experimentation? We also can notice that, even if they aren't totally “admit” in the iGEM competition (named “non-competition teams”), DIYist and amateurs have a place in the 2009 event to compete for their own “non-competition price” (here). The iGEM projects are often planned, design or wanted as “fun”, “sexy” or innovative. What about “having fun” by “making science”? That point take us to a more global question about research, work and producing scientific knowledge : Do every scientific work has to be a strain? Is effort and hardness necessarily close to scientific production? Can't we imagine having fun in the lab? Do that “sexy” projects are serious? Can biology be a hobby? The DIY practices in synthetic biology take us to two more points : amateurs in science and link with the innovations in informatics and web 2.0. DIYbio wants to make amateurs more involved in biology, proving that DIY is the better way for them to learn, and that they can bring some new and innovative knowledge for biologist they work with : a cooperation, everyone take from the other, a “get some, give some” movement (I borrow that maxim to the Registry of Standard Biological Parts). The "get some, give some" is questioned by some student of the team as a new way to create elitist community of users and that communalism is not so obvious nowadays. The link with the Internet world is claimed by DIYbio in a pragmatical perspective. Cooperation, barcamps (here), “having fun projects” is also presented as the way innovations are made in the Internet. So, why not in biology?

Everyone in the team agrees to reject it, to me, more as a matter of principle which is expressed, embodied in concrete cases. In other words, it lays the question of the system of practices in science as a question of epistemology, practical paradigms and the way scientist perceive and have accepted the architecture of their own work. The principle expressed by the team is that “science is serious, science is not about having fun”. The team's global reject could be reduced to two element, about science's principle and its effect on practice : science is not about “having fun” but about knowledge (as a moral precept of science) and that the researcher's work will be strain, because biology is not a hobby (about the scientist work).

How that principle is defended by the team? What are the embodiment of that position? In which theoretical and practical examples?

Informatics.

What about taking in other “knowledge production sphere” their methods of creativity and innovation? For the team, what happened in informatics can't be traced in life science. The idealization of the geek mythical character (young, learning on his own in his room, quite critical and/or asocial) is quite operative here. That kind of character, making that things possible in informatics, can be find in informatics, not in biology.

IGEM : a certain DIY way to learn?

Christophe, who is from an traditional engineer school, admits that the way he “reach” biology through iGEM was quite DIY and on his own. He has to learn it by himself and, above all, for his own interest and needs : nobody asked him to do that. The idea of build your project, build your knowledge seems quite operating in iGEM competition. That idea leaded him to think that amateurs in science could be a good way to make people wonder about new stuff, and hope, in this direction, that “something happens”.

The idea of material constraint : what the lab permit to scientist, what the garage forbid?

The question of the cost of the failure is one of the main point expressed here : coding is free, of course it takes time but it is not like wet materials. Failure has not the same cost in both disciplines, so you don't take the same risk by doing it with amateurs and/or in a garage. Guillaume expressed the fact that a lot of what make synthetic biology interesting is in the lab. That thing can't be bring at home, for both cost of the outfit and the danger of handling.

“I don't laugh by doing a PCR”

Among that talk, the most representative sentence I've heard was something close to “I don't laugh by doing a PCR”. Is Molecular biology not fun because of the scale? Because of the special practices implied by that scale? The idea that “molecular biology is not fun” reconfigures the question : if you are not looking for fun or cooperation, you are looking for efficiency, results. That way, the failure finds other signification, the way to get that knowledge and results is not self-sufficient, results and knowledge are wanted. That idea was also symbolized in the critics against the MIT 2006 iGEM's project (which was about making bacterias smell banana or wintergreen), saying that the general process was impressive, but the “have fun” point was bad : why didn't they choose to make about it a project more useful?

What kind of misuse?

When we evoke the question of misuse, the main problem pointed by the team wasn't that “bioterrorism fear” but the risk that some innovation permits by life science today could be used by everyone for bad reason. That way, bioterrorism is not dreaded, but “own and home made paternity test”. That point lead us to that particular place life science technology are about nowadays : new form of knowledge take us to new form of control. When that technologies are in everybody's hands, that control can be too.

The Steve Kurtz's case : a way to reconsider DIY politically.

During the debate, I refer to the Steve Kurtz case : Steve Kurtz is an American professor and artist of the Critical Art Ensemble, was arrested in 2004 under the patriot act law, because of his possession of biological materials in his own house, preparing an art exhibition (more info here). It was, for our talk, a way to wonder about the political element of that kind of DIY practices. Someone in the team reconsider it in that new light of political resistance, thing went more “useful”. DIY is good to protest, not to make science.

To conclude, that talk wasn't about doing crazy stuff in your garage, but about science : aim, methods, places, creativity, professional and amateurs roles in that process. That kind of uncompromising way to perceive alternative practices in their field is obviously about that, because of acceptation of it in other discipline (informatics) or for other goals (protest).