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⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)
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I had another unpleasant encounter with the past today - about ten or so years ago I used to be quite active in the iGEM oriented student synbio scene. Bunch of things happened around the time though, that made me sick to the core of other people and synbio/diybio community in general. The disappointment was significant enough that I deleted all my SNS accounts (I used to be a pretty judicious, almost enthusiastic user of those things in my previous life), changed my phone number, moved to a different place to start my life alone with my curiosities...
There's been some changes recently, however. I've already published a preprint en route to a proper peer review soon, along with bunch of other research output that needs to be shared/published properly. It's been a long road toward working on my dream again- blazing a trail toward independently carried out, curiosity driven biological research that contributes meaningfully to the general academic progress. Here's a preprint I wrote on the way there, addressing the first known genome of an archaea Halococcus dombrowskii, with rRNA operons on both its chromosome and two other plasmids indicative of different evolutionary trajectories for the different sets. The paper was funded by working night shifts at a loading dock: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.16.504008v2.abstract
I see two large trends when it comes to serious independent research in contemporary times. First is where one works on a bioengineering project where the success is measured by their capital output - such as startups or IP- this is a model popularized pretty early on with proponents constantly calling for biologist equivalent of Jobs or Gates from their garage labs... Second trend is where people participate in what's normally referred to as citizen science projects, as unaccredited free labor, under leadership of a nonprofit umbrella or a professional scientist. While many of the more recent citizen scientst projects tries to be more equitable compared to its early days (when the calls were quite literally for free laborers isolated from the research question and analysis of data), the truth is people are still participating in someone else's research question and are usually not give the training or role that would allow for independent investigation on the data they're gathering themselves. My interest for the last decade or so is to see if there's a third path - where the quality of the independent science is measured by their contribution to the academic/human reservoir of knowledge rather than capital valuations, and the participants are treated as fully fledged researchers capable of asking their own questions based on their own data, rather than compiling them for someone else. I think modern day tools and access to increasinly network repositories of data and knowledge makes this possible, along with relatively cheaper laboratory instruments.
The long term goal for me is a simple one. Accrue a meaningful body of interconnected, peer-reviewed research papers that both answers my own questions as an independent researcher (quite likely evolutionary relationship between plasmids and phages), and then use the body of publication to lobby for either a Master's or PhD review from an accredited university - AND - most importantly - turn this path into a small, continuing organization that other interested independent researchers can follow. There's no financial payoff here. Only the love of life, recognition that a common body of human knowledge is a necessary thing, and the drive to contribute to the civilization - length conversation that we hope to continue on into the future.
Unfortunately, it's difficult to avoid all the negative stuff I've left behind while carrying out my goals, since interaction with people in the biology/synbio sphere is more or less necessary to make some of them happen. I'll leave the particulars vague - but startup driven catering of students from elite universities masquerading as a care for future of scientific pursuit is something I always felt a little reserved about - and after my experiences ten years ago, absolutely disgusted with. Well - I'm quite saddend to say such things are already all around me. I'm beginning to think how the university systems work in our modern society breeds a very particular type of myopic corruption that will continue on to eat away at things far more valuable than their measly brand names.
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