The suits think you can’t do biotech out in the garage. But the suits are wrong.
Meet Eri Gentry, queen of the bio-curious. In 2009, after the recession hit and every biotech company around was going belly up, Gentry went shopping. She picked up over a million dollars worth of lab equipment for $30,000 (around £20,000), installed it in her garage and invited her friends over to play. And her friends invited their friends and pretty soon Gentry was at the front end of the DIY biology movement.
Read the rest of the article at Wired:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-07/15/eri-gentry-garage-biotech-revolution
More information about BioCurious at: http://www.biocurious.org
DIYbio 
I think it depends on your definition of “biotech”. Until the garage biotech movement comes up with a truly novel product or scientific advance (rather than just reiterating the results of others) it will be viewed as lightweight by those doing biotech in conventional settings. I feel we are on the verge of something like this (e.g. a product like the LavaAmp PCR device would go a long way towards validating garage biotech but it’s not yet ready for prime time) and I hope we get there soon.