Introducing Amino: Desktop Bioengineering for Everyone | Hacker News Reader

Introducing Amino: Desktop Bioengineering for Everyone

mitadmissions.org

115 pointsjimsojim13 comments

I love the concept, but I want more details regarding the process I would use to modify my pet bacteria's DNA.

To me the ideal biolab is: digital genome data in, organism(s) out.

I know this isn't promising that, but I want to understand how close it is to full DNA synthesis.

Here here- this potentially offers a huge amount but is vague enough to offer all the promise of a childhood chemistry kit bundled with the realisation on unwrapping that you've been sold up the river with overhyped claims. How hard would it be to generate your own dms sewuences? Could you order genes with appropriate restriction end points and insert that? Does the kit actually perform all transformation and selection automatically?

Amino only covers the next step; growing your bacteria. The kit comes with a single, "living nightlight", sample that you can grow. They also plan to offer additional samples ("Apps"...) that you can buy. As far as tinkering, it sounds like the only intended modification is to the growth liquid: grow in water vs grow in liquid-X.

The company they're working with, Synbiota, does have a "DNA Tinker Studio" kit that looks interesting. It's not full synthesis either though. It contains specific set of available 'parts' to work with, that you combine and get existing bacteria to take up.

There are services, not difficult to find, that offer actual digital->DNA synthesis. Current state, they are expensive, and are focused-on/able-to create only relatively short sequences. Sequence->Modify->Synthesize->Grow, or even targeted splicing, aren't really available things yet, AFAIK.

My fantasy is probably limited by not being a biologist, but I'd need some more examples of what cultures I could grow with this.

> Apps will be priced between $150 and $400, depending on the DNA program and number of components.

That seems a little steep to switch cultures in the future.

One of the nice things about bacteria/yeast is that once you've booted up your app, you can collect a sample, store it, and then re-grow it in the future. As long as you have growth media, an app could result in a lifetime of joy.

More info and some examples of what people are programming cells to do: https://goo.gl/lfweYy

That's quite slick. Love the series of prototypes in the thesis.

I chuckled a bit when i misread it as Animo.

Anyone up for some anthrax?

Please don't post dismissive comments to HN, especially in response to new work.

That's probably one of the worst ways of phrasing that, but they have a point.

I'm in love with biohacking and trying to start a biohackerspace myself in my city, but if we're reaching the level of actually making modifications to organisms at home, we really need to have a serious talk about it. Life is not a toy, it's self-replicating nanotech that's literally capable of killing people at scale.

It may be a snarky comment but the potential is there. When diy-biology gets going international drug smuggling rings are going to be a thing of the past, you're going to have a strain of e. Drugi that can produce your cocaine or heroin. The world hasn't even began to think of the possibilities, both good and bad, that are potentially around the corner

It should be pointed out that most US-based oligo synthesis companies will screen orders for potentially "dangerous" sequences. I recall watching an IDT (idtdna.com) video on CRISPR that brought this to light.

As far as I can tell from the Indiegogo video, Amino appears to be a simple bioreactor that includes competent cells + some sort of plasmid to express genes related to bioluminescence -- am I missing anything else? Pretty compact and neat; I would have loved to play with one of these as a child.

> It should be pointed out that most US-based oligo synthesis companies will screen orders for potentially "dangerous" sequences.

Static analysis, in other words. Enumerating badness. Schneier would not be pleased.

I wouldn't put it past someone to create a mold with a complex life-cycle which eventually enters a form that secretes cocaine.

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