That's very cool! I'll be reading your blog for the next few days; I very much like your view of innovation and liberty. I've only had a quick scan so far, but it seems absolutely dripping of the fun proteases we love to mouth-pipette.
If I may ask, how did you get started? What would your advice be for the motivated amateur? I started in a microbiology degree, transitioned to math, and now I'm about to graduate with my compsci. It's always seemed that there are much deeper connections than was revealed during my courses.
I once told my biology professor that my dream was to innovate in lab technologies. He told me, point-blank, to squash that; the field is oversaturated and we've got as good as we're likely to have for a few decades, so he said.
Do you agree? If not, what do you think are the most glaring market inefficiencies?
I got a virology textbook in 6th grade that I fell in love with, and then started doing at home biotech stuffs with a GFP transformation kit from BioRad that my teacher let me take home in 7th grade. Bit unconventional!
For an amateur, I'd recommend 2 things: go to as many conferences as possible (I'm not sure in other fields, but in biotech I think it is important) and get somebody else to pay for you hands on biotech experience.
Don't listen to your biology professor; he's probably part of the problem.
There are a ton of market inefficiencies. Ginkgo, for example, mainly uses metabolic engineer's knowledge to create challenging new products. What if we could automate the job of metabolic engineering? Though in the end case, it all comes down to if you can make money by solving that market inefficiency, which in biotech, is not always true.
You also have to be in the treacherous middle ground of "not doing bullshit" but also "doing shit". Talk to lots of people to figure out where that is. Happy to call if you'd like!
I'll email you to start with, I'm a little hesitant to post PII on public forums; it'll come from my username@bitsoflore.net. You've given me a lot to think about!
To keep this public dialogue going: are there any biotech conferences you'd specifically recommend? Or are there not any bad choices? I'd also love to get the name of that virology textbook!
Also, to anyone reading this with any interest in biology: I highly recommend that you read this commenter's blog. Here[1] is a link to my favorite post thus far, wherein an actionable plan for a low-cost distribution of material is speculated upon (to put it lightly).
I'd recommend iGEM, Synbiobeta, and the Biosummit (when the conferences are in person). Synbiobeta for industry, biosummit for the hacker vibes, and iGEM because almost every synthetic biologist passes through iGEM (plus can meet a bunch of cool people in similar situation)
There aren't really many bad conferences, just ones with different focuses (SEED for example is a very good science conference). Go to the one that matches your focus.
Thanks for the good review :) Happy to send you some DNA using the Sporenet Protocol! It actually works, but the main problem is that there aren't materials (yet) to distribute using it. Building a company with a few friends of mine to build those materials.
If I may ask, how did you get started? What would your advice be for the motivated amateur? I started in a microbiology degree, transitioned to math, and now I'm about to graduate with my compsci. It's always seemed that there are much deeper connections than was revealed during my courses.
I once told my biology professor that my dream was to innovate in lab technologies. He told me, point-blank, to squash that; the field is oversaturated and we've got as good as we're likely to have for a few decades, so he said.
Do you agree? If not, what do you think are the most glaring market inefficiencies?