0:00:00.556,0:00:03.994
It's a great time to be a molecular biologist. (Laughter)

0:00:03.994,0:00:06.876
Reading and writing DNA code is getting easier

0:00:06.876,0:00:08.408
and cheaper.

0:00:08.408,0:00:10.578
By the end of this year, we'll be able to sequence

0:00:10.578,0:00:12.282
the three million bits of information

0:00:12.282,0:00:15.252
in your genome in less than a day

0:00:15.252,0:00:17.662
and for less than 1,000 euros.

0:00:17.662,0:00:20.492
Biotech is probably the most powerful

0:00:20.492,0:00:23.516
and the fastest-growing technology sector.

0:00:23.516,0:00:26.818
It has the power, potentially,

0:00:26.818,0:00:29.035
to replace our fossil fuels,

0:00:29.035,0:00:31.252
to revolutionize medicine,

0:00:31.252,0:00:35.463
and to touch every aspect of our daily lives.

0:00:35.463,0:00:39.295
So who gets to do it?

0:00:39.295,0:00:41.790
I think we'd all be pretty comfortable with

0:00:41.790,0:00:45.062
this guy doing it.

0:00:45.062,0:00:46.977
But what about

0:00:46.977,0:00:49.849
that guy? (Laughter)

0:00:49.849,0:00:51.719
(Laughter)

0:00:51.719,0:00:57.193
In 2009, I first heard about DIYbio.

0:00:57.193,0:01:01.306
It's a movement that -- it advocates making biotechnology

0:01:01.306,0:01:03.387
accessible to everyone,

0:01:03.387,0:01:07.026
not just scientists and people in government labs.

0:01:07.026,0:01:10.566
The idea is that if you open up the science

0:01:10.566,0:01:13.369
and you allow diverse groups to participate,

0:01:13.369,0:01:15.062
it could really stimulate innovation.

0:01:15.062,0:01:17.868
Putting technology in the hands of the end user

0:01:17.868,0:01:21.057
is usually a good idea because they've got the best idea

0:01:21.057,0:01:23.160
of what their needs are.

0:01:23.160,0:01:26.297
And here's this really sophisticated technology

0:01:26.297,0:01:29.041
coming down the road, all these associated

0:01:29.041,0:01:31.738
social, moral, ethical questions,

0:01:31.738,0:01:35.129
and we scientists are just lousy at explaining to the public

0:01:35.129,0:01:39.011
just exactly what it is we're doing in those labs.

0:01:39.011,0:01:41.739
So wouldn't it be nice

0:01:41.739,0:01:44.175
if there was a place in your local neighborhood

0:01:44.175,0:01:46.755
where you could go and learn about this stuff,

0:01:46.755,0:01:49.078
do it hands-on?

0:01:49.078,0:01:50.593
I thought so.

0:01:50.593,0:01:52.473
So, three years ago, I got together

0:01:52.473,0:01:56.010
with some friends of mine who had similar aspirations

0:01:56.010,0:01:58.145
and we founded Genspace.

0:01:58.145,0:02:01.601
It's a nonprofit, a community biotech lab

0:02:01.601,0:02:02.955
in Brooklyn, New York,

0:02:02.955,0:02:04.724
and the idea was people could come,

0:02:04.724,0:02:08.697
they could take classes and putter around in the lab

0:02:08.697,0:02:12.809
in a very open, friendly atmosphere.

0:02:12.809,0:02:15.450
None of my previous experience prepared me

0:02:15.450,0:02:18.795
for what came next. Can you guess?

0:02:18.795,0:02:21.523
The press started calling us.

0:02:21.523,0:02:24.641
And the more we talked about how great it was to increase

0:02:24.641,0:02:27.313
science literacy, the more they wanted to talk

0:02:27.313,0:02:30.441
about us creating the next Frankenstein,

0:02:30.441,0:02:33.446
and as a result, for the next six months,

0:02:33.446,0:02:35.223
when you Googled my name,

0:02:35.223,0:02:39.276
instead of getting my scientific papers, you got this.

0:02:39.276,0:02:40.854
["Am I a biohazard?"]

0:02:40.854,0:02:42.987
(Laughter)

0:02:42.987,0:02:44.778
It was pretty depressing.

0:02:44.778,0:02:47.738
The only thing that got us through that period

0:02:47.738,0:02:49.599
was that we knew that all over the world,

0:02:49.599,0:02:51.185
there were other people that were trying to do

0:02:51.185,0:02:53.121
the same thing that we were.

0:02:53.121,0:02:55.625
They were opening biohacker spaces, and some of them

0:02:55.625,0:02:58.266
were facing much greater challenges than we did,

0:02:58.266,0:03:02.383
more regulations, less resources.

0:03:02.383,0:03:06.582
But now, three years later, here's where we stand.

0:03:06.582,0:03:11.000
It's a vibrant, global community of hackerspaces,

0:03:11.000,0:03:12.902
and this is just the beginning.

0:03:12.902,0:03:14.963
These are some of the biggest ones,

0:03:14.963,0:03:17.027
and there are others opening every day.

0:03:17.027,0:03:19.898
There's one probably going to open up in Moscow,

0:03:19.898,0:03:21.197
one in South Korea,

0:03:21.197,0:03:23.523
and the cool thing is they each have their own

0:03:23.523,0:03:25.306
individual flavor

0:03:25.306,0:03:27.630
that grew out of the community they came out of.

0:03:27.630,0:03:30.769
Let me take you on a little tour.

0:03:30.769,0:03:33.217
Biohackers work alone.

0:03:33.217,0:03:35.777
We work in groups,

0:03:35.777,0:03:40.162
in big cities — (Laughter) —

0:03:40.162,0:03:42.832
and in small villages.

0:03:42.832,0:03:45.600
We reverse engineer lab equipment.

0:03:45.600,0:03:48.136
We genetically engineer bacteria.

0:03:48.136,0:03:50.363
We hack hardware,

0:03:50.363,0:03:52.608
software,

0:03:52.608,0:03:55.032
wetware,

0:03:55.032,0:03:57.968
and, of course, the code of life.

0:03:57.968,0:04:00.903
We like to build things.

0:04:00.903,0:04:07.290
Then we like to take things apart.

0:04:07.290,0:04:09.406
We make things grow.

0:04:09.406,0:04:11.208
We make things glow.

0:04:11.208,0:04:15.175
And we make cells dance.

0:04:15.175,0:04:18.966
The spirit of these labs, it's open, it's positive,

0:04:18.966,0:04:21.407
but, you know, sometimes when people think of us,

0:04:21.407,0:04:25.434
the first thing that comes to mind is bio-safety,

0:04:25.434,0:04:28.511
bio-security, all the dark side stuff.

0:04:28.511,0:04:31.119
I'm not going to minimize those concerns.

0:04:31.119,0:04:34.916
Any powerful technology is inherently dual use,

0:04:34.916,0:04:36.133
and, you know, you get something like

0:04:36.133,0:04:39.983
synthetic biology, nanobiotechnology,

0:04:39.983,0:04:42.607
it really compels you, you have to look at both

0:04:42.607,0:04:46.020
the amateur groups but also the professional groups,

0:04:46.020,0:04:48.471
because they have better infrastructure,

0:04:48.471,0:04:50.019
they have better facilities,

0:04:50.019,0:04:52.518
and they have access to pathogens.

0:04:52.518,0:04:55.798
So the United Nations did just that, and they recently

0:04:55.798,0:04:58.406
issued a report on this whole area,

0:04:58.406,0:05:01.478
and what they concluded was the power of this technology

0:05:01.478,0:05:05.330
for positive was much greater than the risk for negative,

0:05:05.330,0:05:08.859
and they even looked specifically at the DIYbio community,

0:05:08.859,0:05:12.404
and they noted, not surprisingly, that the press

0:05:12.404,0:05:16.428
had a tendency to consistently overestimate our capabilities

0:05:16.428,0:05:18.963
and underestimate our ethics.

0:05:18.963,0:05:22.492
As a matter of fact, DIY people from all over the world,

0:05:22.492,0:05:25.222
America, Europe, got together last year,

0:05:25.222,0:05:27.771
and we hammered out a common code of ethics.

0:05:27.771,0:05:31.131
That's a lot more than conventional science has done.

0:05:31.131,0:05:34.779
Now, we follow state and local regulations.

0:05:34.779,0:05:36.775
We dispose of our waste properly, we follow

0:05:36.775,0:05:40.116
safety procedures, we don't work with pathogens.

0:05:40.116,0:05:42.819
You know, if you're working with a pathogen,

0:05:42.819,0:05:45.363
you're not part of the biohacker community,

0:05:45.363,0:05:48.516
you're part of the bioterrorist community, I'm sorry.

0:05:48.516,0:05:50.439
And sometimes people ask me,

0:05:50.439,0:05:52.326
"Well, what about an accident?"

0:05:52.326,0:05:55.884
Well, working with the safe organisms that we normally

0:05:55.884,0:05:59.243
work with, the chance of an accident happening

0:05:59.243,0:06:01.571
with somebody accidentally creating, like,

0:06:01.571,0:06:03.217
some sort of superbug,

0:06:03.217,0:06:07.467
that's literally about as probable as a snowstorm

0:06:07.467,0:06:09.539
in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

0:06:09.539,0:06:10.893
Now, it could happen,

0:06:10.893,0:06:15.049
but I'm not going to plan my life around it.

0:06:15.049,0:06:17.979
I've actually chosen to take a different kind of risk.

0:06:17.979,0:06:21.091
I signed up for something called the Personal Genome Project.

0:06:21.091,0:06:23.563
It's a study at Harvard where, at the end of the study,

0:06:23.563,0:06:26.331
they're going to take my entire genomic sequence,

0:06:26.331,0:06:30.003
all of my medical information, and my identity,

0:06:30.003,0:06:34.145
and they're going to post it online for everyone to see.

0:06:34.145,0:06:37.075
There were a lot of risks involved that they talked about

0:06:37.075,0:06:38.851
during the informed consent portion.

0:06:38.851,0:06:40.734
The one I liked the best is,

0:06:40.734,0:06:44.579
someone could download my sequence, go back to the lab,

0:06:44.579,0:06:46.873
synthesize some fake Ellen DNA,

0:06:46.873,0:06:50.947
and plant it at a crime scene. (Laughter)

0:06:50.947,0:06:55.477
But like DIYbio, the positive outcomes and

0:06:55.477,0:06:58.623
the potential for good for a study like that

0:06:58.623,0:07:00.675
far outweighs the risk.

0:07:00.675,0:07:03.076
Now, you might be asking yourself,

0:07:03.076,0:07:06.513
"Well, you know, what would I do in a biolab?"

0:07:06.513,0:07:09.842
Well, it wasn't that long ago we were asking, "Well,

0:07:09.842,0:07:12.907
what would anyone do with a personal computer?"

0:07:12.907,0:07:14.871
So this stuff is just beginning.

0:07:14.871,0:07:18.747
We're only seeing just the tip of the DNA iceberg.

0:07:18.747,0:07:21.832
Let me show you what you could do right now.

0:07:21.832,0:07:25.667
A biohacker in Germany, a journalist, wanted to know

0:07:25.667,0:07:28.901
whose dog was leaving little presents on his street?

0:07:28.901,0:07:31.811
(Laughter) (Applause)

0:07:31.811,0:07:34.517
Yep, you guessed it. He threw tennis balls

0:07:34.517,0:07:37.779
to all the neighborhood dogs, analyzed the saliva,

0:07:37.779,0:07:41.673
identified the dog, and confronted the dog owner.

0:07:41.673,0:07:47.949
(Laughter) (Applause)

0:07:47.949,0:07:51.253
I discovered an invasive species in my own backyard.

0:07:51.253,0:07:53.193
Looked like a ladybug, right?

0:07:53.193,0:07:55.241
It actually is a Japanese beetle.

0:07:55.241,0:07:57.152
And the same kind of technology --

0:07:57.152,0:07:59.236
it's called DNA barcoding, it's really cool --

0:07:59.236,0:08:04.102
You can use it to check if your caviar is really beluga,

0:08:04.102,0:08:07.335
if that sushi is really tuna, or if that goat cheese

0:08:07.335,0:08:10.749
that you paid so much for is really goat's.

0:08:10.749,0:08:14.650
In a biohacker space, you can analyze your genome

0:08:14.650,0:08:15.942
for mutations.

0:08:15.942,0:08:19.166
You can analyze your breakfast cereal for GMO's,

0:08:19.166,0:08:22.084
and you can explore your ancestry.

0:08:22.084,0:08:24.441
You can send weather balloons up into the stratosphere,

0:08:24.441,0:08:28.063
collect microbes, see what's up there.

0:08:28.063,0:08:30.494
You can make a biocensor out of yeast

0:08:30.494,0:08:32.681
to detect pollutants in water.

0:08:32.681,0:08:36.313
You can make some sort of a biofuel cell.

0:08:36.313,0:08:38.606
You can do a lot of things.

0:08:38.606,0:08:41.996
You can also do an art science project. Some of these

0:08:41.996,0:08:45.637
are really spectacular, and they look at social,

0:08:45.637,0:08:48.323
ecological problems from a completely different perspective.

0:08:48.323,0:08:49.885
It's really cool.

0:08:49.885,0:08:52.903
Some people ask me, well, why am I involved?

0:08:52.903,0:08:56.998
I could have a perfectly good career in mainstream science.

0:08:56.998,0:08:59.526
The thing is, there's something in these labs

0:08:59.526,0:09:02.185
that they have to offer society that you can't find

0:09:02.185,0:09:04.152
anywhere else.

0:09:04.152,0:09:06.830
There's something sacred about a space where

0:09:06.830,0:09:09.342
you can work on a project, and you don't have to justify

0:09:09.342,0:09:12.216
to anyone that it's going to make a lot of money,

0:09:12.216,0:09:15.471
that it's going to save mankind, or even that it's feasible.

0:09:15.471,0:09:18.398
It just has to follow safety guidelines.

0:09:18.398,0:09:21.254
If you had spaces like this all over the world,

0:09:21.254,0:09:23.486
it could really change the perception

0:09:23.486,0:09:26.018
of who's allowed to do biotech.

0:09:26.018,0:09:29.710
It's spaces like these that spawned personal computing.

0:09:29.710,0:09:32.126
Why not personal biotech?

0:09:32.126,0:09:34.503
If everyone in this room got involved,

0:09:34.503,0:09:36.251
who knows what we could do?

0:09:36.251,0:09:40.011
This is such a new area, and as we say back in Brooklyn,

0:09:40.011,0:09:43.291
you ain't seen nothin' yet. (Laughter)

0:09:43.291,0:09:47.261
(Applause)