Biohacking -- you can do it, too
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0:01 - 0:04It's a great time to be a molecular biologist. (Laughter)
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0:04 - 0:07Reading and writing DNA code is getting easier
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0:07 - 0:08and cheaper.
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0:08 - 0:11By the end of this year, we'll be able to sequence
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0:11 - 0:12the three million bits of information
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0:12 - 0:15in your genome in less than a day
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0:15 - 0:18and for less than 1,000 euros.
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0:18 - 0:20Biotech is probably the most powerful
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0:20 - 0:24and the fastest-growing technology sector.
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0:24 - 0:27It has the power, potentially,
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0:27 - 0:29to replace our fossil fuels,
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0:29 - 0:31to revolutionize medicine,
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0:31 - 0:35and to touch every aspect of our daily lives.
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0:35 - 0:39So who gets to do it?
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0:39 - 0:42I think we'd all be pretty comfortable with
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0:42 - 0:45this guy doing it.
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0:45 - 0:47But what about
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0:47 - 0:50that guy? (Laughter)
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0:50 - 0:52(Laughter)
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0:52 - 0:57In 2009, I first heard about DIYbio.
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0:57 - 1:01It's a movement that -- it advocates making biotechnology
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1:01 - 1:03accessible to everyone,
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1:03 - 1:07not just scientists and people in government labs.
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1:07 - 1:11The idea is that if you open up the science
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1:11 - 1:13and you allow diverse groups to participate,
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1:13 - 1:15it could really stimulate innovation.
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1:15 - 1:18Putting technology in the hands of the end user
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1:18 - 1:21is usually a good idea because they've got the best idea
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1:21 - 1:23of what their needs are.
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1:23 - 1:26And here's this really sophisticated technology
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1:26 - 1:29coming down the road, all these associated
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1:29 - 1:32social, moral, ethical questions,
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1:32 - 1:35and we scientists are just lousy at explaining to the public
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1:35 - 1:39just exactly what it is we're doing in those labs.
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1:39 - 1:42So wouldn't it be nice
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1:42 - 1:44if there was a place in your local neighborhood
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1:44 - 1:47where you could go and learn about this stuff,
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1:47 - 1:49do it hands-on?
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1:49 - 1:51I thought so.
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1:51 - 1:52So, three years ago, I got together
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1:52 - 1:56with some friends of mine who had similar aspirations
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1:56 - 1:58and we founded Genspace.
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1:58 - 2:02It's a nonprofit, a community biotech lab
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2:02 - 2:03in Brooklyn, New York,
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2:03 - 2:05and the idea was people could come,
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2:05 - 2:09they could take classes and putter around in the lab
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2:09 - 2:13in a very open, friendly atmosphere.
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2:13 - 2:15None of my previous experience prepared me
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2:15 - 2:19for what came next. Can you guess?
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2:19 - 2:22The press started calling us.
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2:22 - 2:25And the more we talked about how great it was to increase
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2:25 - 2:27science literacy, the more they wanted to talk
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2:27 - 2:30about us creating the next Frankenstein,
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2:30 - 2:33and as a result, for the next six months,
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2:33 - 2:35when you Googled my name,
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2:35 - 2:39instead of getting my scientific papers, you got this.
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2:39 - 2:41["Am I a biohazard?"]
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2:41 - 2:43(Laughter)
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2:43 - 2:45It was pretty depressing.
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2:45 - 2:48The only thing that got us through that period
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2:48 - 2:50was that we knew that all over the world,
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2:50 - 2:51there were other people that were trying to do
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2:51 - 2:53the same thing that we were.
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2:53 - 2:56They were opening biohacker spaces, and some of them
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2:56 - 2:58were facing much greater challenges than we did,
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2:58 - 3:02more regulations, less resources.
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3:02 - 3:07But now, three years later, here's where we stand.
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3:07 - 3:11It's a vibrant, global community of hackerspaces,
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3:11 - 3:13and this is just the beginning.
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3:13 - 3:15These are some of the biggest ones,
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3:15 - 3:17and there are others opening every day.
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3:17 - 3:20There's one probably going to open up in Moscow,
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3:20 - 3:21one in South Korea,
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3:21 - 3:24and the cool thing is they each have their own
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3:24 - 3:25individual flavor
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3:25 - 3:28that grew out of the community they came out of.
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3:28 - 3:31Let me take you on a little tour.
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3:31 - 3:33Biohackers work alone.
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3:33 - 3:36We work in groups,
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3:36 - 3:40in big cities — (Laughter) —
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3:40 - 3:43and in small villages.
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3:43 - 3:46We reverse engineer lab equipment.
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3:46 - 3:48We genetically engineer bacteria.
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3:48 - 3:50We hack hardware,
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3:50 - 3:53software,
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3:53 - 3:55wetware,
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3:55 - 3:58and, of course, the code of life.
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3:58 - 4:01We like to build things.
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4:01 - 4:07Then we like to take things apart.
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4:07 - 4:09We make things grow.
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4:09 - 4:11We make things glow.
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4:11 - 4:15And we make cells dance.
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4:15 - 4:19The spirit of these labs, it's open, it's positive,
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4:19 - 4:21but, you know, sometimes when people think of us,
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4:21 - 4:25the first thing that comes to mind is bio-safety,
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4:25 - 4:29bio-security, all the dark side stuff.
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4:29 - 4:31I'm not going to minimize those concerns.
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4:31 - 4:35Any powerful technology is inherently dual use,
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4:35 - 4:36and, you know, you get something like
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4:36 - 4:40synthetic biology, nanobiotechnology,
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4:40 - 4:43it really compels you, you have to look at both
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4:43 - 4:46the amateur groups but also the professional groups,
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4:46 - 4:48because they have better infrastructure,
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4:48 - 4:50they have better facilities,
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4:50 - 4:53and they have access to pathogens.
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4:53 - 4:56So the United Nations did just that, and they recently
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4:56 - 4:58issued a report on this whole area,
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4:58 - 5:01and what they concluded was the power of this technology
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5:01 - 5:05for positive was much greater than the risk for negative,
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5:05 - 5:09and they even looked specifically at the DIYbio community,
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5:09 - 5:12and they noted, not surprisingly, that the press
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5:12 - 5:16had a tendency to consistently overestimate our capabilities
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5:16 - 5:19and underestimate our ethics.
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5:19 - 5:22As a matter of fact, DIY people from all over the world,
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5:22 - 5:25America, Europe, got together last year,
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5:25 - 5:28and we hammered out a common code of ethics.
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5:28 - 5:31That's a lot more than conventional science has done.
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5:31 - 5:35Now, we follow state and local regulations.
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5:35 - 5:37We dispose of our waste properly, we follow
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5:37 - 5:40safety procedures, we don't work with pathogens.
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5:40 - 5:43You know, if you're working with a pathogen,
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5:43 - 5:45you're not part of the biohacker community,
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5:45 - 5:49you're part of the bioterrorist community, I'm sorry.
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5:49 - 5:50And sometimes people ask me,
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5:50 - 5:52"Well, what about an accident?"
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5:52 - 5:56Well, working with the safe organisms that we normally
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5:56 - 5:59work with, the chance of an accident happening
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5:59 - 6:02with somebody accidentally creating, like,
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6:02 - 6:03some sort of superbug,
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6:03 - 6:07that's literally about as probable as a snowstorm
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6:07 - 6:10in the middle of the Sahara Desert.
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6:10 - 6:11Now, it could happen,
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6:11 - 6:15but I'm not going to plan my life around it.
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6:15 - 6:18I've actually chosen to take a different kind of risk.
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6:18 - 6:21I signed up for something called the Personal Genome Project.
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6:21 - 6:24It's a study at Harvard where, at the end of the study,
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6:24 - 6:26they're going to take my entire genomic sequence,
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6:26 - 6:30all of my medical information, and my identity,
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6:30 - 6:34and they're going to post it online for everyone to see.
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6:34 - 6:37There were a lot of risks involved that they talked about
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6:37 - 6:39during the informed consent portion.
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6:39 - 6:41The one I liked the best is,
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6:41 - 6:45someone could download my sequence, go back to the lab,
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6:45 - 6:47synthesize some fake Ellen DNA,
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6:47 - 6:51and plant it at a crime scene. (Laughter)
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6:51 - 6:55But like DIYbio, the positive outcomes and
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6:55 - 6:59the potential for good for a study like that
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6:59 - 7:01far outweighs the risk.
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7:01 - 7:03Now, you might be asking yourself,
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7:03 - 7:07"Well, you know, what would I do in a biolab?"
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7:07 - 7:10Well, it wasn't that long ago we were asking, "Well,
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7:10 - 7:13what would anyone do with a personal computer?"
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7:13 - 7:15So this stuff is just beginning.
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7:15 - 7:19We're only seeing just the tip of the DNA iceberg.
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7:19 - 7:22Let me show you what you could do right now.
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7:22 - 7:26A biohacker in Germany, a journalist, wanted to know
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7:26 - 7:29whose dog was leaving little presents on his street?
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7:29 - 7:32(Laughter) (Applause)
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7:32 - 7:35Yep, you guessed it. He threw tennis balls
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7:35 - 7:38to all the neighborhood dogs, analyzed the saliva,
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7:38 - 7:42identified the dog, and confronted the dog owner.
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7:42 - 7:48(Laughter) (Applause)
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7:48 - 7:51I discovered an invasive species in my own backyard.
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7:51 - 7:53Looked like a ladybug, right?
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7:53 - 7:55It actually is a Japanese beetle.
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7:55 - 7:57And the same kind of technology --
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7:57 - 7:59it's called DNA barcoding, it's really cool --
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7:59 - 8:04You can use it to check if your caviar is really beluga,
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8:04 - 8:07if that sushi is really tuna, or if that goat cheese
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8:07 - 8:11that you paid so much for is really goat's.
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8:11 - 8:15In a biohacker space, you can analyze your genome
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8:15 - 8:16for mutations.
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8:16 - 8:19You can analyze your breakfast cereal for GMO's,
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8:19 - 8:22and you can explore your ancestry.
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8:22 - 8:24You can send weather balloons up into the stratosphere,
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8:24 - 8:28collect microbes, see what's up there.
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8:28 - 8:30You can make a biocensor out of yeast
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8:30 - 8:33to detect pollutants in water.
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8:33 - 8:36You can make some sort of a biofuel cell.
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8:36 - 8:39You can do a lot of things.
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8:39 - 8:42You can also do an art science project. Some of these
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8:42 - 8:46are really spectacular, and they look at social,
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8:46 - 8:48ecological problems from a completely different perspective.
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8:48 - 8:50It's really cool.
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8:50 - 8:53Some people ask me, well, why am I involved?
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8:53 - 8:57I could have a perfectly good career in mainstream science.
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8:57 - 9:00The thing is, there's something in these labs
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9:00 - 9:02that they have to offer society that you can't find
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9:02 - 9:04anywhere else.
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9:04 - 9:07There's something sacred about a space where
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9:07 - 9:09you can work on a project, and you don't have to justify
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9:09 - 9:12to anyone that it's going to make a lot of money,
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9:12 - 9:15that it's going to save mankind, or even that it's feasible.
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9:15 - 9:18It just has to follow safety guidelines.
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9:18 - 9:21If you had spaces like this all over the world,
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9:21 - 9:23it could really change the perception
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9:23 - 9:26of who's allowed to do biotech.
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9:26 - 9:30It's spaces like these that spawned personal computing.
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9:30 - 9:32Why not personal biotech?
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9:32 - 9:35If everyone in this room got involved,
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9:35 - 9:36who knows what we could do?
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9:36 - 9:40This is such a new area, and as we say back in Brooklyn,
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9:40 - 9:43you ain't seen nothin' yet. (Laughter)
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9:43 - 9:47(Applause)
- Title:
- Biohacking -- you can do it, too
- Speaker:
- Ellen Jorgensen
- Description:
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We have personal computing, why not personal biotech? That’s the question biologist Ellen Jorgensen and her colleagues asked themselves before opening Genspace, a nonprofit DIYbio lab in Brooklyn devoted to citizen science, where amateurs can go and tinker with biotechnology. Far from being a sinister Frankenstein's lab (as some imagined it), Genspace offers a long list of fun, creative and practical uses for DIYbio.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 10:08
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Biohacking -- you can do it, too | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for Biohacking -- you can do it, too | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Biohacking -- you can do it, too | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Biohacking -- you can do it, too | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for Biohacking -- you can do it, too | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Biohacking -- you can do it, too | ||
Joseph Geni added a translation |