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Comment by webhat | Hacker News Reader

That would be pretty awesome if they could do it. From what I understand of genetic modification the enzymes which are used to cap or splice the of DNA strands can be very expensive.

I'm guessing $15k is a fraction of the money they'll need and they are hoping to pick up a substantial amount more.

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I don't think there are any salaries here, but the DNA that codes for the enzymes can be synthesized de novo for way less than $1,000 so this should be enough money for a prototype. Bio is getting cheaper and easier to do all the tiem. Getting high levels of expression will take longer however and that will cost more!

I didn't think salaries were in there, not if you look at the number of people who seem to be on the team. I was actually taking from point of view of the advise from Indigogo, which is to ask a fraction of the amount, meaning they would need much more.

Hi. I'm one of the team members. We are all volunteers and all work is being done at community laboratories with very low fees. Many of our reagents are donated and all work is being immediately published under free culture licenses or as public domain. You are both right about the cost. This campaign will fund us enough to show proof of concept (world's first real vegan cheese). A larger sum will be needed to get stable high levels of expression and scale everything up into a financially viable food-safe production facility.

Thanks for reacting. I've shared it to my vegan friends as I think this is a great idea. I've always thought the current soy curd based vegan cheeses required a reboot.

Reagent was the word I was groping for. :)

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