What do you need to do DIY genetic engineering?

[Warpspeed13]

I was reading an article about some guys developing a strain of oil eating bacteria on their own. What kind of equipment would someone need to do that? It sounds really cool.

 

[SteamKing]

I really, really would like to see this article.

 

[Warpspeed13]

It was a while ago and I can't find it again. I'm probably not remembering the article correctly either, sorry. Either way the question still stands.

 

[SteamKing]

Well, you could do what this guy did:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananda_Mohan_Chakrabarty

Try to stay out of court, however.

 

[Warpspeed13]

Cool article but I meant what equipment. I don't actually care about oil eating bacteria all that much. How could anyone afford to genetic engineering at home with bacteria and viruses unless they were Bill Gates?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

There are plenty of biopunk groups that buy (or even build) lab equipment and perform all sorts of simple experiments in their homes. At the moment I'm sceptical that such a movement could produce something positive on the same scale as a professional, well funded research institution but there are technologies out there that are making it cheaper and simpler to design plasmids, build them and transfect bacteria. Biobricks for example is an approach which attempts to standardise plasmid design with a database of modular sequences that can be assembled to produce a gene network. Techniques like in-fusion assembly make it fairly straight forward to assemble these parts together.

 

[Warpspeed13]

Cool. Are bio bricks currently available for purchase or are they still in the planning / useless faze?

 

[AlephZero]

I don't know about "available for purchase" to the general public, but they are definitely real, and capable of being used for projects at high school level. http://2014hs.igem.org/Main_Page

 

[SteamKing]

AFAIK, people who breed dogs or livestock or horses are all not as wealthy as Bill Gates. Of course, the methods used in this type of genetic engineering doesn't involve (too many) test tubes.

 

[.Scott]

Google: genetic engineering kit