This talk examines the rise of distributed, decentralized, amateur/citizen science and "do it yourself" biology.
Bio
Jason Bobe
Jason Bobe serves as the Director of Community for the Personal Genome Project based out of George Church's lab at Harvard Medical School. The Personal Genome Project seeks to encourage the thoughtful development of personal genomics technology and practices by building frameworks for prototyping and evaluation at increasing scales.
Bobe is co-founder of DIYbio.org, an organization that aims to help make biology a worthwhile pursuit for citizen scientists and amateur biologists. DIYbio is fast becoming the organizational hub for amateur biologists worldwide, uniting the movement's participants through its website, online forums, blog and local chapters. He has also worked as a Business Development Consultant for OpenWetWare.org, as Director of Business Development at DNA Direct, and as an independent consultant.
He has attended both the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. He is interested in how emerging biotechnologies and the web are redefining the relationships between scientific research communities, communities from the general public, and the network of actors in-between.
Mac Cowell
Mac Cowell studied Biology at Davidson College under Malcolm Campbell and Laurie Heyer and works at MIT helping run iGEM, the International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition.
Besides synthetic biology and science 2.0, many of his interests revolve around the ways technology can encourage and enable spontaneous cooperation; for instance, flashmobs and alternate reality games.
Tito Jankowski
Tito Jankowski is the founder of Pearl Biotech.
Raymond McCauley
Raymond McCauley is currently working on sequencing and gene expression R&D.
He has over 15 years of experience in the biotechnology and high tech arenas, with Illumina, Ingenuity Systems, QIAGEN Genomics, Applied Carbon, various startups and governmental agencies, and including a stint as executive producer for PBS television series with TANSTAAFL Media.
Meredith Patterson
Meredith L. Patterson is a technologist and science fiction author. She has spoken at numerous industry conferences on a wide range of topics.
She is also a prolific blogger and software developer, and a leading figure in the biopunk movement.
Hugh Reinhoff
Hugh Rienhoff is an entrepreneur and founder of MyDaughtersDNA, an organization dedicated to understanding genetic conditions. Dr. Rienhoff is a physician and scientist with 15 years experience as a venture investor and entrepreneur in the life sciences. During much of the 90's he was a partner directing biotechnology investments at the venture firm New Enterprise Associates. He was a founding director of such companies as Healtheon/WebMD (HLTH) and Aurora Biosciences (ABSC). In 1998, he founded DNA Sciences (originally Kiva Genetics), a diagnostic company focused on genetic discoveries and served as its Chairman and CEO for 4 years. Dr. Rienhoff has served as a director on the boards of many public and private companies and currently serves on the boards GeneEd, Odyssey Thera and Lipid Biosciences.
Dr. Rienhoff was a member of the faculty in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He trained in mathematics, medicine, and genetics at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. He received a Doctor of Medicine degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a Bachelor of Arts degree, with honors, in Biology and English Literature from Williams College.
Individuals and conservation groups can use the free resources at the citizen science site Wildlife and Plant Sightings, www.junponline.com . Anyone can submit, document and publish their wildlife sightings here to share with everyone. All submitted data is available in a public database and organized into basic reports. Amateur to professional can use this free service.
I like the thinking!
The tools seem to be a cell phone plugged into a PC with a cell phone microscope and or spectroscope? Cheap cheap cheap
Many people would buy the cheap microscope and spectroscope and donate the blood, sputem, etcetra for world wide bio research in a collaborative effort.
member. 
