March 4, 2013

New Article Explores Growing DIYbio Movement

"As the do-it-yourself biology (DIYbio) community has grown, so too have the concerns about the potential dangers and reach of the DIYbio movement—in particular with regard to synthetic biology," writes Todd Kuiken of the Synthetic Biology Project in an article in the March issue of The Scientist. Kuiken provides a number of scary headlines about amateur scientists cooking up all sorts of trouble, but concludes, "[M]uch of this alarm is overblown, as critics overestimate the current abilities of the DIYbio movement and underestimate the ethics of its participants, who can range from PhD-trained scientists to the true amateur who has little professional training."

The whole article can be found here.