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A nationwide network of public bio labs is needed to enable a truly participatory bioeconomy.
In 2020, Stanford University abruptly shut down laboratory operations due to the pandemic. A team of undergraduates competing in iGEM, the global bioengineering competition, were left in a quandary. How could they develop their novel COVID-19 diagnostics for this competition without a proper lab? Luckily, they heard about Bi°Curious, a community biology lab in Santa Clara, California, that was operating with pandemic precautions. Not only did it have the equipment to enable meaningful progress on the teams project, it also had mentors. The students ended up winning a gold medal at the competition. More importantly, they felt empowered as leaders in scientific research moving forward.
In hindsight, the team came to see the closing of Stanford labs as a silver lining. At Bi°Curious, they had the opportunity to learn in a different environment than an academic campus alongside a diverse group of scientists and entrepreneurs who enthusiastically supported them. Bi°Curious, which has been sponsoring community iGEM teams since 2014, was designed to foster exactly this kind of community in a supportive environment that teaches and reinforces responsible biosafety practices.
Today, the United States stands to bring the innovations of emerging biotechnologies to scale, growing a bioeconomy that will transform agriculture, medicine, domestic manufacturing, energy, and defense. However, this ambitious vision cannot be actualized if activity is limited to Boston, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and a few biotechnology hubs. To ensure everyone can participate in and gain the most from a booming bioeconomy, many more communities must have access to biotechnology at the local level. We believe that a national network of thousands of local labs, like Bi°Curious, could enable all Americans to responsibly discover and innovate with biology.
Much as local libraries laid a foundation for the information age by building American literacy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, community bio labs-we call them LABraries-could usher in the bio-age by building bioliteracy. We envision LABraries as essential civic infrastructure to support scientific research, the prototyping of innovative and entrepreneurial ideas, and workforce training in different community contexts. By mobilizing community resources, including equipment, expertise, and connections to local businesses, LABraries could help people solve problems at...