Begging for disruption: where biotech, grassroots, and microfunding overlap

fightaging.org

2 pointsreasonattlm3 comments

That amount of money (5-20000) actually doesn't seem like much for biotech stuff if you need lab access and supplies.

Your instincts on that are wrong. There's a skilled postgrad fellow with papers to his name proving or disproving pulsed laser ablation of lipofuscin in nematodes for ~14k, for example. You should read the DIY Bio piece here for how people reduce costs for OTS items. There is huge bloat in OTS biotech prices, which can be traced all the way back to government funding of research if you care to - standard budget management, etc, etc.

http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/bio/diy-bio-growing-mo...

Ok, but whose lab is this person using and how much is he paying to use it?

My wife works in 'biotech' research, and it seems to me that even if you can scrimp on people fees, paying for equipment is going to be expensive unless you work in an area that doesn't require much of it.

Interesting article, and hopefully things will move in that direction, but I think 'build it yourself' can only get you so far. Hopefully that range will continue to expand though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com