Week 1 HW: Principles and Practices

having the priviledge of growing up down the road from SymbioticA, research centre for biological arts, I found myself at an impass when the research centre was (unfairly) shutdown by the university at the start of 2023. As a bioartist working with DNA origami, The difficulty I faced after the closure of the research centre wasn’t procuring laboratory equipment; after all, lab equipment is often relatively simple to DIY, and components wise are generally cheap without the inflation tacked on by “Big Science Suppliers”. After all, Paul Rothemond developed the first DNA origami structures at his own home using his kitchen stove as the thermocycler.

No, the difficulty I found was in the procurement of, and pricing of, laboratory reagents from companies like sigma or even twist biosciences, whom would not allow me to order DNA to a residential address despite having the qualifications and the sequence itself being non-biohazardous… PC -1 Lab.

If a global biotech future is to be truly accessible, something needs to be done about the cost and portability of dna synthesis. It is all well and good for scientists and researchers integrated into universities or private laboratories to be able to test and develop DNA nanotechnology using commercially available ssDNA synthesis, but for biohack spaces and the informed civilian/bioartist at home, the cost ssDNA oligos scales to the point at which it becomes financially prohibitive to use techniques like rapid prototyping or even just having to do multiple experiments because the authors of the protocol you are following missed out an important step and all of a sudden your experiment failed, oligos gone, and having to reach for the wallet.

DNA synthesis is conceptually simple, the reagents are cheap, and until the rise of 3D printers there was no way for a hobbyist to produce a DNA synthesis device

wait there patent is ceased worldwide? https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2020077227A3/en

PATENTS ARE GROWTH INHIBITORS

Where are the biotech start ups, the vision of the wild west akin to alphabets garage, they are all poor or destitute and unable to actually generate sellable products due to the overbearing watch of the patent enforcement office. While I understand the importance of patents (although I do think the current system for lecturers recieving KPIs based on paper and patent publishing is wack) there was a paper which mentioned that DNA synthesis was affected by historical patents 25yrs old, and that they were updating the technology, low and behold, putting it behind a fucking patent!!!!

So, heres where the cool idea comes in Basically attempting to use boltzgen and protein design tools to generate the same protein tools for dna synthesis, but that are developed with sequences outside of the

protecting environment by using less plastic aliquots