---
title: "Do-it-yourself biology"
chunk: 1/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do-it-yourself_biology"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:13:30.373685+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Do-it-yourself biology (DIY biology, DIY bio) is a biotechnological social movement in which individuals, communities, and small organizations study biology and life science using the same methods as traditional research institutions. DIY biology is primarily undertaken by individuals with limited research training from academia or corporations, who then mentor and oversee other DIY biologists with little or no formal training. This may be done as a hobby, as a not-for-profit endeavor for community learning and open-science innovation, or for profit, to start a business.
Other terms are also associated with the do-it-yourself biology community. The terms biohacking and wetware hacking emphasize the connection to hacker culture and the hacker ethic. The term hacker is used in the original sense of finding new and clever ways to do things. The term biohacking is also used by the grinder body modification community, which is considered related but distinct from the do-it-yourself biology movement.  The term biopunk emphasizes the techno-progressive, political, and artistic elements of the movement.

== History ==
The term "biohacking" as well as the concept of do-it-yourself biology has been known as early as 1988.
Biohacking entered the San Francisco programmer and maker communities as early as 2005, through simple demonstrations of basic experiments. As DIYbio experiments became the focus of SuperHappyDevHouse hackers, the hobby gained additional momentum.
In 2005 Rob Carlson wrote in an article in Wired: "The era of garage biology is upon us. Want to participate?  Take a moment to buy yourself a  lab on eBay." He then set up a garage lab the same year, working on a project he had previously worked at the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California.
In 2008, the DIYbio organization was founded by Jason Bobe and Mackenzie Cowell and its first meeting held.
In 2010, Genspace opened the first community biology lab, Ten months later it was followed by BioCurious, and Victoria Makerspace. Many other labs and organizations followed, including but not limited to Counter Culture Labs in Oakland, CA, Baltimore Underground Science Space in Baltimore, MD, TheLab in Los Angeles, CA, Denver Biolabs in Denver, CO, and SoundBio Lab in Seattle, WA.
It has been estimated that in 2014 there have been 50 DIY biology labs around the world.
In 2016, the first conference to focus specifically on biohacking was announced to take place in September in Oakland, CA.
DIY biology is projected to develop even more into structured systems that have built legitimacy and public trust, with a community behind it that can be scientifically credible. 

== Aspects ==
The DIYbio movement seeks to revise the notion that one must be an academic with an advanced degree to make any significant contribution to the biology community. It allows large numbers of small organizations and individuals to participate in research and development, with spreading knowledge a higher priority than turning profits. The DIY Biology Movement revolves around the ideals of using non-establishment research in order to allow for the freedom of research by people who are not considered qualified by regulatory bodies. In recent years, there are various DIY ways to live healthy and many of them also focuses on different simple ways to biohack mind, body, metabolism, and sleep.
The motivations for DIY biology include (but aren't limited to) lowered costs, entertainment, medicine, biohacking, life extension, and education. Recent work combining open-source hardware of microcontrollers like the Arduino and RepRap 3-D printers, very low-cost scientific instruments have been developed.

=== Community laboratory space ===
Many organizations maintain a laboratory akin to a wet-lab makerspace, providing equipment and supplies for members.  Many organizations also run classes and provide training. For a fee (usually between $50 and $100), members can join some spaces and do experiments on their own. DIY biology laboratories often use online forums, social media, and websites to communicate with other laboratories and DIY Biology enthusiasts in order to share their research with other laboratory bodies and communities.

=== Open source equipment ===
The DIY biology movement attempts to make available the tools and resources necessary for anyone, including non-professionals, to conduct biological engineering. One of the first pieces of open source laboratory equipment developed was the Dremelfuge by Irish biohacker Cathal Garvey, which uses a 3D printed tube holder attached to a Dremel rotary tool to spin tubes at high speeds, replacing often expensive centrifuges. Many other devices like PCR machines have been recreated extensively. In recent times, more complex devices have been created such as the OpenDrop digital microfluidics platform and the DIY NanoDrop both developed by GaudiLabs. Opentrons makes open-source software, affordable lab robots, and got its start as a DIY biology collaboration at Genspace. Incuvers makes telemetric chambers for cellular research that are affordable and allow for complete customizability of their environments. OpenCell, a London-based biotech lab provider hosts regular biohackathons to help encourage more opensource development.

=== Advocacy ===
Most advocacy in biohacking is about the safety, accessibility and future legality of experimentation. DIY Biology findings are unregulated for the most part and therefore are deemed trustworthy by Trust Architecture, which the laboratories founded. Trust Architecture is a set of systems that make a source or laboratory credible using infrastructure. Todd Kuiken of the Woodrow Wilson Center proposes that through safety and self-governance, DIY biologists won't be in need of regulation. Jo Zayner has proposed that safety is inherent in biohacking and that accessibility should be the foremost concern as there is large underrepresentation of social and ethnic minorities in biohacking.

== Research topics ==
Many biohacking projects revolve around the modification of life and molecular and genetic engineering.

=== Genetic engineering ===
Genetic Engineers are a subculture of biohackers as one of the most accessible forms of biohacking is through engineering microorganisms or plants. Experiments can range from using plasmids to fluorescent bacteria, controlling gene expression using light in bacteria, even using CRISPR to engineer the genome of bacteria or yeast.

=== Medicine ===