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Open source hardware and software, low-cost and DIY instruments, cloud computing, and the internet of things. Come build the future of scientific labs.

We are putting together a workshop called FutureLabCamp in Boston in early 2010.  The focus is building the future of science laboratories with open source hardware and software, low-cost and DIY instruments, cloud computing, and the internet of things. We’re bringing together hardware hackers, HCI wizards, standards builders, and forward-thinking researchers together for an amazingly productive weekend.

It’s not a conference – it is a workshop, with an emphasis on producing useful output.

Find out all about it, and sign up to get on the mailing list, at http://futurelabcamp.org.

We believe every lab instrument should provide a data feed of its measurements and that data aggregation and storage should be effortless, automatic and routine. To that end, our goal during the workshop is to prototype new and existing feed systems for popular lab equipment (Cameron Neylon’s work, Pachube, etc) and to develop a consensus of standards and an ecosystem of projects that lay the foundation for future work. When data aggregation is effortless and routine, a rich new landscape of opportunities emerges for data visualization, micro-attribution, augmented research, better scientific reproducibility, more finely-grained and realtime collaboration, and much more.

In addition to building prototypes, we hope to run several tracks dedicated to the applications of ubiquitous laboratory sensing:

• Hardware: Building open lab instruments and hacking existing lab instruments with an eye toward data logging and automation.
• Software: Automating, augmenting, and aggregating research; from mobile to desktop to cloud.
• Data: Starting, spreading, and refining repositories, journals, micro-attribution, uber-big datasets and standards. Making science machine readable.
• HCI: Natural User interfaces to augment research; visualization techniques for exploring the increasing influx of data

As we’re still in planning stages, we’d love to get your feedback on the event. Is this something you’d find useful? What in particular should we try to build at FutureLabCamp?  Let us know in the comments!

The Boston Open Source Science Lab (BOSSlab.org)

Hey DIYbio-Boston peeps,

It’s been a while!

I’ve been making progress on getting us a lab space here in the Boston area. I’ve acquired a shipping container that has a molecular biology lab built inside of it and am spinning up an organization to take care of it. It’s called the Boston Open Source Science Lab, or the BOSSlab (cred for the awesome name goes to a brilliant volunteer at the recent iGEM Jamboree). Some basic info about it online athttp://bosslab.org.

My vision for the space is to develop it into a volunteer research center where PhDs and amateurs can work together to develop and document low-cost, low-waste “open source” tools and techniques for biotechnology and synthetic biology. 12-month goal: build and distribute one unencumbered (IP-free or freely-licensed) BioBrick under the new BioBrick Public License to the DIYbio community, preferably a device with an obvious and fun phenotype. In the process develop comprehensive and practical resources and protocols for DIY biobrick creation and use that bridge the gap between high-school and PhD-level lab instructional material. Along the way, we’ll figure out how to make it all financially sustainable with a combination of workshop tuition, membership fees, donations, and grants. We might even be able to put together some DIY kits.

For now, the BOSSlab is chilling out on a low-cost industrial lot near Fresh Pond (NorthWest Cambridge) until we can find a space for it closer to public transportation, universities, utility hookups, etc.

The fine folks at Sprout (http://sproutward.org) are coincidentally in the process of setting up a community wetlab space as well and are excited to host us until the BOSSlab is ready to open its doors.

I propose we meet up at Sprout this coming Sunday at Noon to:

• set up Sprout’s wetlab space
• review the great projects that were brought up during the iGEM Jamboree DIYbio meetup
• and finish with a tour of the BOSSLab, which is about 15 minutes away

You can get directions to Sprout here: http://thesprouts.org/contact

Check out the diybio-boston mailing list for updates and watch @bosslab on twitter.

Cheers!
Mac

A bunch of interesting projects ideas were discussed at the DIYbio meetup during the iGEM Jamboree 2 weeks ago – here are my notes:

• Yashas Shetty wants to organize an international DIY microscope building session and subsequent videoconference for early December based on his DIY Microscope guide.  See http://hackteria.org/wiki/index.php/DIY_microscopy for instructions
• Alex Hornstein told us he had just been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and wanted to synthesize his own insulin, DIY-style. Would we help? Hell yes! A grad student from Harvard who had dropped in pointed out that the Registry of Standard Biological Parts already has an insulin-generating biobrick. Alex and the grad student went off to talk.This is radical self-actualized DIY theraputics. Extremely controversial.
• A variety of brave souls volunteered to start writing for the (so far, low-volume) blog at diybio.org in an attempt to amplify the signal that inevitably gets lost in the noise on the diybio mailing list and in the DIYbio ecosystem of blogs. Want to help? Email contact@diybio.org for an account.
• volunteers from each DIYbio region present (Ellen from NYC, Tito from SF, Paul from MIT & myself from Boston) thought it would be useful to describe the organizational blueprint for the local group in a central place, perhaps on the new forums, for comparisons sake and to help new groups bootstrap more intelligently and more quickly.
• Alec Nielsen, myself, Jason Bobe, David Thompson, and iGEM volunteer from MSU, and the DIYbio-NYC folks all were excited about developing a standard DIY-friendly DNA barcoding protocol. 16s rDNA sequencing of soil microbes was the initial suggestion, followed by interest in plant barcoding, in which sample collection and genome isolation may potentially be easier (using the COI gene).
• I announced the Boston Open Source Science Lab, a volunteer research center where PhDs and amateurs can work together to develop and document low-cost, low-waste “open source” tools and techniques for biotechnology and synthetic biology. 12-month goal: build and distribute one unencumbered (IP-free or freely-licensed) BioBrick under the new BioBrick Public Agreement to the DIYbio community, preferably a device with an obvious and fun phenotype.  In the process develop comprehensive and practical resources and protocols for DIY biobrick creation and use that bridge the gap between high-school and PhD-level lab instructional material.  Along the way, we’ll figure out how to make it all financially sustainable with a combination of workshop tuition, membership fees, donations, and grants.  We might even be able to put together some DIY kits.