Biohackers are foot soldiers of the next revolution in biotechnology and medicine, willing to do what others can’t or won’t, says Ryan Bethencourt from Berkely Biolabs. 3D printers, laser cutters, Arduino hardware and publicly shared protocols are the basis of biohack labs like Biocurious, founded in 2011 in Silicon Valley.
2015 has been the year where DIYBio Barcelona got established, mainly driven by Alvaro Jansà, ex researcher at GRIB and Núria Conde from the laboratory of Ricard Solé at the Institute for Evolutionary Biology (IBE: CSIC-UPF). They have organized the completely booked out workshop “Building a microscope with your phone” during the PRBB Open Day and they are currently presenting some of their creations at the +Humans exposition at the CCCB.
The Biomedical Research Park of Barcelona (PRBB) is directly involved in two biohacking projects. Last spring the park collaborated in the artistic project “EXOglands radical dynamics: fluids, tissues & bloody self-aware enhancement bionicLAB” of Klau O.jamett and Paula Pin from the GynePunk community at Ca la Fou. And in 2016, Hangar, in collaboration with the PRBB, will announce open calls for “Prototyp_ome”, financed by the Daniel & Nina Carasso Foundation. The project consists of residencies in a newly equipped biolab at Hangar, including short stays at three “real” laboratories at the PRBB. Researchers at PRBB, are you ready to set up our own biohack lab here at the park?
