In the latest example of corporate greed in the pharmaceutical world, the US state of West Virginia announced today that it's investigating the makers of the EpiPen for Medicaid fraud - which means they think it's defrauded the US government healthcare system.
More specifically, it's accusing manufacturers Mylan of inflating the price of EpiPens by almost 500 percent since they purchased the life-saving device back in 2007
Since then, the cost of a single EpiPen has gone from around US$57 to $318 - a 461 percent increase. Which is pretty frustrating when you consider that many people with allergies need to keep the medication on them at all times in case of going into life-threatening anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis can be triggered by anything from a bee sting to eating trace amounts of peanut.
In the face of the public backlash over their price rises, at the end of last month, Mylan announced they'd be releasing a generic version of the EpiPen that would cost only $150 per injection.
But industry insiders were quick to criticise this apparent act of goodwill, with pharmaceutical experts telling NBC News earlier this month that they estimated an EpiPen would only cost around $30 to make.
Now a bio-hacking collective called Four Thieves Vinegar has tested that claim out for themselves, and shown you really can engineer your own DIY EpiPen - which they called the "EpiPencil" - for around $35. And they claim it works as well as the $300 version - although we definitely don't recommend you try it at home.
The main difference between their version and the one you can buy at the pharmacy is that you have to measure out the correct dose of epinephrine before using the DIY version.
"We've gotten many requests to do something about the EpiPen, so we have,"says Michael Laufer, one of the founders of Four Thieves Vinegar, who has a PhD in mathematics from the City University of New York.
"We developed the EpiPencil, which is an epinephrine auto-injector built entirely from off-the-shelf parts, which can be assembled in a matter of minutes for just over $30."
EpiPens are designed as 'last resort' devices that are filled with epinephrine, an adrenaline drug that's more than 100 years old. The drug itself isn't patented, but what makes the EpiPen so attractive is the fact that its design lets pretty much anyone use it - which is handy in emergency situations.
Mylan has the patent on the auto-injecting device up until 2025, and while it would be possible to build another type of model that does the same thing, it makes things a lot tricker.
"[There's] fear of creating a device that doesn’t work reliably, and a regulatory process that makes getting products to market incredibly difficult," writes Condliffe.
To be clear, we're definitely not recommending you go out and make your own EpiPen. The Four Thieves Vinegar version is not only totally unregulated, but it also hasn't been shown to reliably work for everyone - something that would require years of clinical trials and peer-reviewed papers.
"It's essential to remember that epinephrine auto-injectors are life-saving products, and it is critical that they are made to a high standard of quality so patients can rely on them to work safely and effectively," said US Food and Drug Administration spokesperson, Theresa Eisenman.
But as an experiment to show that the EpiPen really can be created for around $30 - and with non-bulk parts at that - the Four Thieves Vinegar DIY version definitely makes its point. And hopefully it reminds people that they shouldn't have to pay ridiculous amounts for life-saving medicine.
"You know there are people who are just not buying an EpiPen because they can’t afford it," Laufer told The Parallax. "That’s unconscionable."
With West Virginia's new investigation and the public still pretty pissed off about the cost of EpiPens, it'll be interesting to see what happens next. Your move, Mylan.
Four Thieves Vinegar Biohacking Collective's Mantra: "Free Medicine for Everyone"
People are disenfranchised from access to medicine for various reasons. To circumvent these, we have developed a way for individuals to manufacture their own medications. We have designed an open-source automated lab reactor, which can be built with off-the-shelf parts, and can be set to synthesize different medications. This will save hundreds of thousands of lives.
The main reasons for people being disenfranchised from medicines are: price, legality, and lack of infrastructure. Medicines like Solvadi which costs $80,000 for a course of treatment, is beyond the reach of most people. Mifepristone and Misoprostal are unavailable in many places where abortion is illegal. Antiretroviral HIV treatments even when provided free, have no way of getting to remote locations in 3rd world countries.
The design will be published online, along with synthesis programs. The system will also have a forum system for users to communicate and contribute to the development of the system. With time, the system will become self-sustaining, much like other open source movements.
Abstract
The introduction of affordable, consumer-oriented 3-D printers is a milestone in the current “maker movement,” which has been heralded as the next industrial revolution. Combined with free and open sharing of detailed design blueprints and accessible development tools, rapid prototypes of complex products can now be assembled in one’s own garage—a game-changer reminiscent of the early days of personal computing. At the same time, 3-D printing has also allowed the scientific and engineering community to build the “little things” that help a lab get up and running much faster and easier than ever before.
Figures
Citation: Baden T, Chagas AM, Gage G, Marzullo T, Prieto-Godino LL, et al. (2015) Open Labware: 3-D Printing Your Own Lab Equipment. PLoS Biol 13(3): e1002086. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002086
Funding: This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience Tübingen, EXC 307 to TE and TB; BA 5283/1-1 to TB) and the U.S. National Institutes of Mental Health Small Business Innovation Research grant #R44 MH093334 to GG and TM. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: Authors GG and TM are founders of Backyard Brains (www.backyardbrains.com), a company specializing in the design and distribution of Open Labware.
Abbreviations:: ABS, Acrylnitrile butadiene styrene; CNC, computer numerical control; DIY, Do It Yourself; EMG, Electromyogram; ERG, Electroretinogram; FOSSFA, Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa; GNU, “GNU is not Unix” (recursive acronym); GPIO, general-purpose input-output; IT, information technology; LED, Light Emitting Diode; NIH, National Institutes of Health; PCB, Printed Circuit Board; PLA, Polylactic acid; TReND, Teaching and Research in Natural Sciences for Development (in Africa); UV, Ultraviolet
Applications of 3-D printing technologies (Fig. 1A, Box 1) have become as diverse as the types of materials that can be used for printing. Replacement parts at the International Space Station may be printed in orbit from durable plastics or metals, while back on Earth the food industry is starting to explore the same basic technology to fold strings of chocolate into custom-shaped confectionary. Also, consumer-oriented laser-cutting technology makes it very easy to cut raw materials such as sheets of plywood, acrylic, or aluminum into complex shapes within seconds. The range of possibilities comes to light when those mechanical parts are combined with off-the-shelf electronics, low-cost microcontrollers like Arduino boards [1], and single-board computers such as a Beagleboard [2] or a Raspberry Pi [3]. After an initial investment of typically less than a thousand dollars (e.g., to set-up a 3-D printer), the only other materials needed to build virtually anything include a few hundred grams of plastic (approximately US$30/kg), cables, and basic electronic components [4,5].
Fig 1. Examples of open 3-D printed laboratory tools.A1, Components for laboratory tools, such as the base for a micromanipulator [18] shown here, can be rapidly prototyped using 3-D printing. A2, The printed parts can be easily combined with an off-the-shelf continuous rotation servo-motor (bottom) to motorize the main axis. B1, A 3-D printable micropipette [8], designed in OpenSCAD [19], shown in full (left) and cross-section (right). B2, The pipette consists of the printed parts (blue), two biro fillings with the spring, an off-the-shelf piece of tubing to fit the tip, and one screw used as a spacer. B3, Assembly is complete with a laboratory glove or balloon spanned between the two main printed parts and sealed with tape to create an airtight bottom chamber continuous with the pipette tip. Accuracy is ±2–10 μl depending on printer precision, and total capacity of the system is easily adjusted using two variables listed in the source code, or accessed via the “Customizer” plugin on the thingiverse link [8]. See also the first table.
Box 1. Glossary Open source
A collective license that defines terms of free availability and redistribution of published source material. Terms include free and unrestricted distribution, as well as full access to source code/blueprints/circuit board designs and derived works. For details, see http://opensource.org.
Maker movement
Technology-oriented extension of the traditional “Do-it-Yourself (DIY)” movement, typically denoting specific pursuits in electronics, CNC (computer numerical control) tools such as mills and laser cutters, as well as 3-D printing and related technologies.
3-D printing
Technology to generate three-dimensional objects from raw materials based on computer models. Most consumer-oriented 3-D printers print in plastic by locally melting a strand of raw material at the tip (“hot-end”) and “drawing” a 3-D object in layers. Plastic materials include Acrylnitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and Polylactic acid (PLA). Many variations of 3-D printers exist, including those based on laser-polymerization or fusion of resins or powdered raw materials (e.g., metal or ceramic printers).
Arduino boards
Inexpensive and consumer-oriented microcontroller boards built around simple processors. These boards offer a variety of interfaces (serial ports, I2C and CAN bus, etc.), μs-timers, and multiple general-purpose input-output (GPIO) pins suitable for running simple, time-precise programs to control custom-built electronics.
Single board computers
Inexpensive single-board computers capable of running a mature operating system with graphical-user interface, such as Linux. Like microcontroller boards, they offer a variety of hardware interfaces and GPIO pins to control custom-built electronics.
It therefore comes as no surprise that these technologies are also routinely used by research scientists and, especially, educators aiming to customize existing lab equipment or even build sophisticated lab equipment from scratch for a mere fraction of what commercial alternatives cost [6]. Designs for such “Open Labware” include simple mechanical adaptors [7], micropipettes (Fig. 1B) [8], and an egg-whisk–based centrifuge [9] as well as more sophisticated equipment such as an extracellular amplifier for neurophysiological experiments [10], a thermocycler for PCR [11], or a two-photon microscope [12]. At the same time, conceptually related approaches are also being pursued in chemistry [13–15] and material sciences [16,17]. See also Table 1.
Table 1. Open Labware designs for a biology lab. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002086.t001
A Culture of SharingMost makers share their designs under an open source license together with detailed assembly instructions in online repositories [20–22] such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) 3-D print exchange [23] or in peer-reviewed journals [10,17,24–29]. As a result, anyone can freely use and modify them. This open culture, which has transformed the world of software engineering over the past decades, offers several advantages over traditional product design. First, designs are not only free, but are directly shaped by people who will actually use the final product. Second, building your own experimental equipment yields a much deeper understanding of the principles underlying its design and a better awareness of its limits. Third, manufacturing is immediate and local—thus empowering laboratories and schools located in difficult-to-reach places. Fourth, the open source movement is a global phenomenon, connecting people worldwide, often to recruit talented builders and coders from outside the traditional scientific establishment. Still, there are drawbacks. For example, a commercial solution may be preferred if the time and cost of in-house development exceeds the benefits of control and instrument knowledge. Nevertheless, and perhaps counter-intuitively, some open designs are published by commercial companies that offer the parts as well as the assembled product with technical support for a fee, while maintaining the source material online under an open source license. Consumers can more freely balance cost against time to build, while companies gain in customer relations and product feedback.
Quality Control and the Evolution of Open Labware Designs
The flagship of the open source movement, the operation system GNU/Linux [30], is perhaps the best example for the potential of open designs. First available in the 1990s, today it is one of the most widely used system on supercomputers, servers, and mobile phones (Android) and increases its share of home users every year. Critically, Linux is fully open source—anyone can freely access its entire source code, change it, and distribute modifications. Its success flows from the idea that “given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow” [31]. In other words, a distributed network of collaborators helps to identify and rectify bugs in the system as they arise. Open Labware works the same way: release of a design sparks feedback and refinements from the community. Although Open Labware’s contributor base is still relatively small, feedback can nonetheless markedly improve product design and expand potential applications over time. For example, free online sharing of the designs for a manually controlled 3-D printed micromanipulator (Fig. 2A) [18] provided the starting point for a high-precision motorized version (Fig. 2B) [32]. Subsequently, and in combination with open designs for smartphone lens-adapters offering portable options for field-microscopy [33], both designs led to the “Raspberry Pi-scope” [34]—a self-standing histology microscope based on a Raspberry Pi, equipped with a high-resolution camera module, a low-cost acrylic lens, and the manipulator body to accurately position the sample (Fig. 2C). One next step in this evolution may be to add low-cost fluorescence capability through the addition of a ultraviolet light-emitting diode (UV-LED) and the appropriate filters, perhaps inspired by materials used in the less than US$1 fluorescence-capable Foldscope [24]. Without free-and-open sharing of the complete source materials at all stages of development, this evolution would not have been possible. With educators and researchers increasingly integrating Open Labware approaches into their projects, designs are expected to continuously improve and diversify.
Fig 2. Evolution of an Open Labware design.
A, A 3-D printable micromanipulator with a slanted Z-axis [18], here shown amidst commercial alternatives, initially served as the basis for a motorized version with “real” Z axis [32] (B). B1,2, the three axes are driven by continuous-rotation micro-servos, controlled by an Arduino fitted with a Joystick-shield and a 9V battery. B3, The motorized manipulator offers sufficient precision to target individual hairs on the head of a fruitfly (±5–20 μm during movements, depending on printer precision; <1 μm drift min-1 when stationary). Scale bar 1 mm. C1, The same manipulator build was then converted into a microscope-stage to permit accurate placement and focus of histology samples [34]. The optics are provided by an off-the-shelf, low-power acrylic lens positioned directly above a Raspberry Pi camera module [3]. C2, Image taken with the microscope, showing a slice of mouse brain (hippocampus) stained for cytochrome oxidase C. Scale bar 500 μm.
doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002086.g002
Online Resources for Learning and Problem Solving
Although most Open Labware designs are published with detailed assembly instructions aimed at the non-specialist, a basic understanding of concepts in physics, electronics, and computer programming is certainly helpful. Luckily, freely available online resources facilitate self-learning (Table 2). In addition, many makers hone their skills directly at the workbench, simply by attempting to recreate or modify existing designs. Expert community help can be rapidly found in online forums such as Stack Overflow [35], returning to the idea that many eyes lead to rapid problem-solving. In addition, online aggregators gather and summarize information on specific topics, serving as a hub for both information seekers and distributors. Some of them are curated in a centralized manner [36], while others follow the distributed wiki principle [37].
Table 2. Open resources for self-taught learning of programming, electronics, and basic physics. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002086.t002
Application in a Resource-Challenged Context
If a commercial alternative is available, it is usually the compromise between time and money spent that determines whether to build or purchase equipment. While Open Labware designs may benefit any research or education setting [38], one obvious foothold for their possibilities lies in economically deprived schools and universities in the developing world. Here, the introduction of Open Labware may make the crucial difference between having some usable equipment to work with and having none at all. Several benefits of an open model come to light: low cost, local manufacture, and the possibility to customize according to local demands or availability of parts. In sub-Saharan Africa, only a few bases and organizations that offer training in “maker” skills or general promotion of open source principles operate. These include the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA [39]), Fundi bots [40], as well as a few physical spaces such as FabLabs [41] and Maker- [42] and Hackerspaces [43] scattered mostly around the major cities. In addition, companies selling easily transportable 3-D printers and supplies are rapidly establishing their foothold on the African continent, such that local sourcing of the required hardware is no longer an insurmountable obstacle. However, on the whole, Open Labware possibilities remain poorly established in this context, as attested in a survey taken by 89 biomedical researchers from 12 sub-Saharan African countries in August 2014 (Fig. 3). When asked about their software competency, most respondents indicated that while they are comfortable with “basic” IT usage (defined as using office packages or navigating the web), few were routine users of standard open analysis packages such as R [44], octave [45], or other Python [46] based packages, and programming skills were even less prevalent (Fig. 3A). Awareness and competency in the use of open hardware approaches were even less developed: over 90% of respondents (83/89) had never used 3-D printing or any form of single-board computers or microcontrollers (Fig. 3B).
Fig 3. Open Labware at universities in sub-Saharan Africa.
An online survey was taken by 89 biomedical researchers (MSc. to
Professor) at universities in 12 different sub-Saharan African countries
in August 2014. Researchers rated their own competency and awareness in
aspects of software and hardware usage. A, Software competency rated on
a scale of 1 (low) to 10 (high) in “basic usage such as navigating
office software or the internet,” “usage of open analysis packages such
as R [44], octave [45],
or similar,” and “programming, e.g., using C++, python, or any other
mainstream language.” B, Hardware awareness for possibilities in “3-D
printing” (top) and “single board computers/microcontrollers such as
Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Beagleboard, or similar” rated in four
categories: (i) “I have never heard of this,” (ii) “I have heard of it
but I have no access,” (iii) “I have tried using this at least once,”
(iv) “I am a competent/routine user.”doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002086.g003
As part of ongoing efforts to promote scientific education and research in the developing world, we introduced the many possibilities of Open Labware to schools and universities in sub-Saharan Africa (TReND in Africa [47]) and Latin America (Backyard Brains [48]). Different formats were used, ranging from three-week intensive neuroscience summer schools aimed at university graduates in Uganda and Tanzania (four events), to multiday MakerSpace workshops aimed at school students and their teachers in Chile and Mexico (12 events), to outreach events and lectures held at scientific conferences, schools, and public spaces on four continents (more than 100 events). Here, we present some experiences and success stories from this work.
In-Depth Exposure during Multiday Training Events
The longer events, such as the three-week neuroscience summer schools in Africa or the multiday MakerSpace workshops in Latin America, afforded participants the opportunity to get hands-on experience using, assembling, and contributing to the development of Open Labware designs. One popular activity was to assemble existing designs (such as a spikerbox, Fig. 4A [10,49]) from off-the-shelf parts. This required participants to study the circuit diagram, note the identity and polarity of simple electronic components such as chips and capacitors and to solder them in place on the printed circuit board (PCB) (Fig. 4B). The assembled amplifiers were subsequently used to perform classic neurophysiological experiments such as recording of action potentials from the locust [50] or cricket [51,52] extensor tibiae (Fig. 4C). Although initially daunting especially for the many participants without previous contact with any form of electrical engineering, the experience tended to be very motivating across ages and cultures. In particular, it contributed to take away the fear of experimenting with simple electronic circuits or opening up and attempting to modify or repair existing electronic tools in their daily environment. The low cost of required parts also allowed participants to build their own gear, rather than that of their school or university, making them more invested in its success and maintenance. Critically, building equipment from scratch often resulted in a high level of mechanistic understanding and a curiosity to “play” with the finished product to see if it can be improved or modified to better suit a particular purpose. For example, one undergraduate student linked an electromyogram (EMG)-amplifier to an off-the-shelf “robotic limb” [53] via an Arduino microcontroller [1] to remotely control grasping movements by contracting their forearm muscles (Fig. 4D). Clearly, introduction of low-cost and open source electronics and mechanical parts has the potential to open up vast possibilities to resourceful people anywhere in the world, independent of financial means or educational background.
Fig 4. Hands-on exposure to Open Labware in the developing world.
A, Each student assembled a spikerbox [10,49],
an amplifier for neurophysiological experiments, from its off-the-shelf
components. B, Students at a workshop in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. C,
The assembled amplifiers were subsequently used to perform simple
neurophysiological experiments [51]. Image credit for panels B and C: Horst Schneider. D, One student set up
a spikerbox via an Arduino to trigger closure of a “gripper-hand,” a
low-cost robotic limb, through contractions of their forearm muscles. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002086.g004
During the three-week neuroscience summer schools in Uganda and Tanzania [54] we introduced participants to 3-D printed lab tools such as pipettes [8], manipulators [18,32], and microscope adapters [55] and compared the usefulness of self-built versus commercially available solutions for different types of experiments. For example, although printed pipettes [8] offer lower precision than commercially available ones (±2–10 μl, depending on printer precision) they are nonetheless adequate for many “low precision” tasks such as distributing diluted antibody solutions to different samples or applying mounting media for immunohistochemistry. Similarly, we used different versions of 3-D printed micromanipulators [18,32] to position reference electrodes during neurophysiological experiments, e.g., for Calliphora tangential cell recordings [56], but maintained the recording tungsten electrode on a more stable commercial manipulator. For some types of recordings, such as Drosophila electroretinograms (ERGs) [57], the printed manipulators were adequate to hold both electrodes, and the magnification gained by attaching a low-power acrylic lens to a webcam or smartphone easily sufficed for their accurate placement. We also provided access to pre-installed Raspberry Pi computers [3] running a range of open analysis and office software packages and provided basic training in their use. Hands-on exposure allowed students to judge for themselves which designs would be useful in their own research and teaching activities. In a subsequent survey, students rated the usefulness of every open design described above as at least nine out of ten on average (n = 33). We believe that the introduction of Open Labware possibilities to the African university system may be a highly effective measure towards fostering excellence in research and education on the continent.
Motivating More High School Graduates to Pursue a Career in Science
One pervasive issue in building a sustainable research infrastructure and scientific culture in resource-challenged countries is a perceived limit on career choices afforded by higher education. Traditionally, three disciplines—medicine, civil engineering, or law—are considered the best choices for reliable income, with few individuals enrolling in a natural science subject and fewer still ending up in active research [58,59]. To encourage students to consider a career in science, we (TReND and Backyard Brains) have participated in more than a hundred science outreach events around (Neuro)science, engaging more than 10,000 students, parents, and teachers. In several science camps (“ChileVA! [60]”), we gave two-hour lectures to high school students about the brain and how to record from neurons and muscles. The students not only “tolerated” this unusually long-format science lecture without breaks, but swarmed the demonstration booth afterwards. Clearly, low-cost and portable equipment offers the possibility to perform science demonstrations anywhere, independent of local infrastructure.
In TReND’s African activities, student-alumni of our summer workshops have taken over local science outreach by organizing into regional teams to visit schools and universities in their respective home countries [61]. Many of these young scientists come from similar backgrounds as the students they engage, allowing them to act as powerful role models. Thus, students attending a school that cannot afford the equipment or infrastructure to perform live experiments during science classes are exposed to local scientists with a similar background, handling equipment they know how to build from affordable, local resources. The experience can be very powerful and inspire them to pursue a similar career, as well as offering local teachers ideas to use in future science classes. This approach of “teaching the teachers” also means that the impact of educating a few students at a high level has the potential to trickle-down and achieve a wide impact in the long term.
Policy Recommendations
Clearly, the use and design of Open Labware designs can be a powerful ingredient to foster scientific research, education, and public science engagement. Their evolution spans several disciplines, from computer sciences and mechanical engineering to electronics and biology—thus connecting experts and the wider public across fields and sparking creativity in people of all ages. Their low cost, adaptability and robustness renders designs suitable for a broad range of applications in both teaching and research. Below we present some suggestions for policy implementations to optimize available possibilities.
Integrate more aspects of design and use of Open Labware into traditional science curricula, ideally at an early age.
Establish more hands-on training courses in basic hardware design and programming skills for established scientists and educators.
Establish infrastructural support to afford more students and educators easy and direct access to 3-D printing and related technologies. With 3-D printers starting at a few hundred dollars and their price steadily falling, schools and university departments should not be barred from investing in their own model because of economic reasons.
Provide incentives for companies to invest in an open model of product design. This move promises to spark a new generation of open companies in more direct dialogue with the end user, towards better, individually tailored, and more affordable product design.
Container with all files mentioned in the article that are currently hosted on thingiverse (www.thingiverse.com).
S1 Data. Thingiverse files.
Container with all files mentioned in the article that are currently hosted on thingiverse (www.thingiverse.com).
doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002086.s001
(ZIP)
Acknowledgments
We thank the students and voluntary instructors of the many lectures and workshops mentioned in the manuscript, as well as the TReND outreach team, headed by Mahmoud Bukar Maina and Yunusa Mohammed Garba, for their ongoing efforts in promoting science education in Africa. We thank all sponsors of workshops, most notably including the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO), The Company of Biologists, and the Cambridge Alborada Fund.
ORIGINAL:PLOS
Tom Baden,
Andre Maia Chagas,
Greg Gage,
Timothy Marzullo,
Lucia L. Prieto-Godino,
Thomas Euler
March 20, 2015
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002086
Your DSLR can do much more than just take a few nice portraits or the occasional vacation photos – with some DIY magic you can actually turn it into a device which can detect planets outside our solar system – something that 20 years ago was impossible even with the most sophisticated telescopes.
So how can you achieve this? David Schneider who you can see in the video above was able to use his Canon EOS Rebel XS (a.k.a Canon 1000D) camera. With old manual-focus 300mm Nikon telephoto lens he got from eBay for under a $100 with a $17 adapter
After he had his camera setup Schneider needed a way to track stars in a very precise way. There are of course very expensive options that you can buy, However as a DIY enthusiast he decided to create something on his own based on a device called a barn door tracker (a relatively simple device that will allow you to shoot longer exposures and track the stars to compensate for the Earth’s rotation).
Looking online you can find many different designs for creating a barn door tracker (see for example here and here) – some are very basic and manual and some are more advanced and use a computer – which is exactly what Schneider decided to do (using arduino) – costing him another few dollars (including an inexpensive power adapter that can run his camera for hours).
Buying and building the hardware you see in the video was actually the easy part. The hard part was finding a way to look for a target star, track it and be able to measure the brightness of the star changing as a planet passes by it. Now it is important to realize at this point that the star chosen for this task – called simply HD 189733 (about 63 light-years away from us in the constellation of Vulpecula) is known to have an exoplanet orbiting it since 2005 – so Schneider did not actually discover a planet outside our solar system but was “only” able to confirm its existence. However given the very basic and inexpensive equipment he used – this is still a pretty impressive achievement. Finding a new expoplanet this way will probably require a lot more patience but it might not be impossible if you have the right information from other observations of the same region of space.
All this makes us wonder if NASA can actually do something that will significantly improve our ability to detect expoplanets and cost a fraction of any existing observatory. By funding a competition between companies and entrepreneurs to create a low cost but functional hardware that will be sold at a relatively low price to the consumer (say below $300 or so) and use any DSLR with a telephoto lens and a simple distributed computing software along the lines of SETI@home or Orbit@home that will coordinate worldwide efforts to locate, track and confirm the existence and orbits of exoplanets – it can drastically improve the rate in which we discover and confirm planets outside our solar system (and help raise a new generation interested in Astronomy).
Two MIT grad students offer up DIY brain-recording gear
Photo: Open Ephys
Graduate students Josh Siegle and Jakob Voigts were planning an ambitious series of experiments at their MIT neuroscience labs in 2011 when they ran into a problem. They needed to record complex brain signals from mice, but they couldn’t afford the right equipment: The recording systems cost upward of US $60,000 each, and they wanted at least four. So they decided to solve their dilemma by building their own gear on the cheap. And knowing that they wouldn’t be the last neuroscientists to encounter such a problem, they decided to give away their designs. Now their project, Open Ephys, is the hub of a nascent open-source hardware community for neural technology. Siegle and Voigts weren’t knowledgeable about either circuit design or coding, but they learned as they went along. By July 2013, they were ready to manufacture 50 of their recording systems, which they gave to collaborators for beta testing. This spring they manufactured 100 improved units, which are now arriving in neuroscience labs around the world. They estimate that each system costs about $3,000 to produce.
Neuroscience has a history of hackers, Siegle says, with researchers cobbling together their own gear or customizing commercial systems to meet their particular needs. But those new tools rarely leave the labs they are built in. So scientists spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel. The goal of Open Ephys (which is short for open-source electrophysiology) is not just to distribute the tools that Siegle and Voigts have come up with so far but to encourage researchers to put resources into developing open-source tools for the benefit of the whole community. “In addition to changing the tools, we also want to change the culture,” Siegle says.
Photo: Open Ephys Open Ephys just distributed 100 of its acquisition boards to neuroscience labs around the world.
The flagship tool that Siegle and Voigts developed is an acquisition board, which makes sense of the electric signals from electrodes implanted in an animal’s brain. The board interfaces with up to eight headstages that amplify, filter, multiplex, and digitize signals from the brain, and then sends those signals to a computer for further processing. Commercial systems typically have individual ICs perform each of those four functions, but Siegle and Voigts’s system uses a single microchip for the four steps. The chip was recently developed by Intan Technologies, based in Los Angeles. “Once we realized these chips were available, it seemed kind of silly to keep buying the big systems,” Siegle says.
The president and cofounder of Intan, Reid Harrison, says that shrinking and consolidating the gear wasn’t that complicated—it mostly required initiative. “It’s such a niche market that no one else had tried to miniaturize the technology,” he says. “It’s not exactly on the scale of CPUs and cellphones, which drive most IC technology.” However, Harrison says he recognized a need for his small, multipurpose chips. Neuroscientists are always trying to fit more electrodes into an animal’s brain to record more neural activity, he says, which requires ever tinier devices with the electronics close to the electrodes. “You could put 1,000 electrodes in the brain, but you don’t want 1,000 wires on an animal that’s supposed to be mobile,” he says. The Intan chips take information from up to 64 electrodes and turn it into one digital signal, eliminating the confusion of wiring.
The major neural technology companies have designed products that incorporate Intan’s chips, but they also swear by their larger, multichip systems. Keith Stengel, the founder of Neuralynx, in Bozeman, Mont., says that in his big systems, each component is optimized for peak performance. “A lot of our customers have said that you buy a Neuralynx system for the serious work that you’re going to publish, and then you get an Open Ephys system as a second system, for grad students to start their research on,” he says.
Illustration: Open Ephys Open Ephys offers building instructions for this head-mounted neural implant system for mice.
Andy Gotshalk, CEO of Blackrock Microsystems, in Salt Lake City, also argues that the commercial products will continue to be the gold standard. “You’re not going to be moving into FDA clinical trials using an Open Ephys system,” he says. The commercial products come with guarantees of quality and reliability, he says, as well as intensive customer support. Gotshalk says his customers are willing to pay a premium for that backing.
Both Stengel and Gotshalk say they welcome Open Ephys to the market and think that its systems can fill a niche. They’re also willing to work with the upstart to make sure their commercial software works with the Open Ephys hardware. Harrison agrees that the community is happy to have another option to work with, and he draws a parallel to the computing industry. “The existing tools are like the PCs and the Macs of the neuroscience world, but now we also have this Linux,” Harrison says. “It’s a lot less expensive, and you can hack it yourself, but it’s not for everyone.”
Open-source software paved the way for a new, community-driven development model by providing a product that was free to use and modify. This in turn fostered a business culture that was driven by support-services. That open-source principles could also herald a new era in biology was demonstrated by the successful completion of the publicly funded Human Genome Project more than a decade ago. Today, that same open, community-driven mindset continues to drive much research in the life sciences.
Soon after the human genome sequence was published, biohackers and do-it-yourself biology (DIYbio) groups came onto the scene. Among the first to demonstrate the feasibility of garage biology was Meredith Patterson, who created glow-in-the-dark yogurt by transfecting green fluorescent protein DNA into Lactobacillus. Rob Carlson, who in 2005 was among the first to spot this new development and start his own garage lab, opined in The Scientist in 2011 that garage innovation would be as important for technological advancements in biology as it was in IT. Since then, some biohackers have organized themselves into low-cost, community-based labs providing both lab space and training. However, unleashing their true technological potential will call for greater networking between these groups and borrowing concepts from business incubator models and the open-source hardware movement.
DIYbio groups—such as BioCurious, CounterCulture Labs, Genspace, Bioartlab, and Biogarage—have sprung up in many cities across North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. While many have demonstrated that simple experiments like isolating DNA or creating recombinant microbes are easily replicated outside the traditional lab, more promising, low-cost, open-source tools are also being developed. These includeBiocurious’s bioprinter, OpenFuge, and the Kickstarter-backed OpenPCR. Of these, the latter two are already available, and at a fraction of the cost of the cheapest commercial models. To grow, the DIYbio community must have access to inexpensive lab equipment and consumables. A number of companies, which include Open Biotechnology, IORodeo, and Chai Biotechnologies, are offering open-source products ranging from mammalian cell lines, electrophoresis kits, and power packs to thermal cyclers for PCR. While this list is by no means exhaustive, partnering with these and other similar startups could satisfy DIYbio’s thirst for machines and reagents, and help create innovative technologies.
And then there are the open-source hardware companies, such as SparkFun, Adafruit Industries, and MakerBot, as well as initiatives like RepRap, which are well positioned to serve the DIYbio community. SparkFun and Adafruit manufacture hardware components for DIY projects, such as Arduino microcontroller boards, printed circuit boards, and other accessories. MakerBot produces the Replicator 2 series of 3-D printers and RepRap is a community-based initiative for building self-replicating 3-D printers. Writing in Science, Michigan Technological University’s Joshua Pearce noted that Arduino-controlled research equipment fabricated on 3-D printers could soon become a reality. Members of Joseph DeRisi’s lab at the University of California, San Francisco, have already taken the first steps by 3-D printing lab consumables and equipment such gel electrophoresis combs, gel trays, and rotors for bench-top centrifuges.
While the ability of DIYbio to drive technological innovation is fairly obvious, its ability to spur basic research innovation is less clear. For this to happen, equipment and operating costs must be brought down. Technological innovation may well fuel research advances in the long run, but for now, DIYbio groups could focus on community outreach programs and targeting high school and university participation. Community labs that are up and running could invite students to volunteer. They could expand community outreach online by posting videos or providing links to educational sites. Networking among DIYbio groups to develop shared goals and invest in shared equipment could be one way out of the resource crunch. Another would be to borrow from the business incubator model by asking for a small percentage of equity in exchange for assistance in developing a successful product and bringing it to market.
Countercultural movements are evidence of a society’s diversity and vitality. Many of the biggest advances in science have come from people outside or on the fringes of the science establishment. The emerging DIYbio community could become the incubator that nurtures the next generation’s technologies and public scientists. For this to happen, DIY biologists will need to band together to gain the critical mass necessary to support the open-source development of biological techniques, equipment, and experimental methods.
ORIGINAL: The Scientist
By Usha Nair
December 9, 2013
Usha Nair is a research associate in the department of biology at the University of Saskatchewan, where her research focuses on the structure determination of proteins associated with bacterial virulence.
