In a spare bedroom of his family's house in County Cork, Ireland, Cathal Garvey is repeating the feats that led to the dawn of the biotechnology age. He's growing bacteria. He's adding DNA. He's seeing what happens.
"To transform bacteria was once a huge deal, a new method," he explains. "Today, you can do it with Epsom salt and an over-the-counter brand of laxatives."
Garvey, who is 26, dropped out of a PhD program at a big cancer lab two years ago. Instead of giving up on science, however, he started doing it on his own, spending $4,000 to equip a laboratory in his parent's house. As a member of the "do-it-yourself" biology movement, Garvey takes inspiration from the early days of hobby computers, when garage tinkerers spawned companies like Apple and the rest of the PC industry. The idea now is that anyone—not only big-budget academic labs or large companies—should be able to practice biotechnology.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Doing Biotech in My Bedroom - Technology Review
