In this year the death of the infamous “biohacking” practitioner , Aaron Traywick, a showman of unapproved “cures” and the man who had openly injected into his bare left thigh an experimental herpes treatment developed by his company, brought the DIY-bio communities in grey area into the spotlight[1]. The safety problems of DIYbio were highlighted, division within the community observed, and discussion soon followed. But what is DIY-bio, how it developed, and what should we do? In line with these questions, we conducted an online investigation of DIY-bio, and proposed ways of addressing the associated risks.

DIY-bio is a global movement which disseminates the use of biotechnology beyond traditional academic and industrial institutions and into the lay public[2].

DIY-bio is widespread. Its practitioners include a broad mix of amateurs, enthusiasts, students, and trained scientists. According to the movement’s main association - the DIYbio.org website – the movement currently counts 26 local groups in Europe, 35 in the United States and Canada, and 11 in Latin America, Asia and Oceania[2]. And yet, this may only represent the tip of iceburg. In a conference of Chinese iGEM teams in 4 Oct, an insider said to us that there are up to 100,000 in DIY-bio in China alone, though most of them are likely only doing rather trivial experiments like a simple analysis of environmental microbes. With this in mind, it is obvious that there may be more Traywicks that has not yed dared to venture into the public.

The DIY-Bio movement has developed under the influence of at least four related movements. First, of course, the do-it-yourself movement that became popular in the 1990s; Second, DIY-Bio is part of the citizen science movement, but that DIY-Bio projects are not initiated and supervised by scientists within academic institutions, rather having a genuinely bottom-up character; Third, DIY-Bio represents a direct translation of free software and hacking practices into the realm of genes and cells, and it has largely adopted the general principles of the hacker ethic such as sharing, openness, decentralization, free access to tech, and world improvement; Fourth, DIY-Bio has affinity with the maker movement that represents an expansion of the hacker culture and ethics from software to hardware development[2]. But this is not the whole story: DIYbio is far from a homogenous activity, and the characters of a given DIYbio community also depends on the particular socialcultural environment. For example, in America, where hacker and maker culture are more prevalent, the codes on diybio.org is a considerably weaker ethical framwork and left biohackers with a much more open maneuvering space compared to its European counterpart. In the US there is a strong focus on biosecurity (including bioterrorism), while in Europe the focus is much more on biosafety. Yet another difference concerns DIY-medicine: whereas North American groups attempt to develop an alternative to the established health care practices, European groups rather focus on helping people in developing countries. And finally, amateur biologists in Europe are more than their North American counterparts focused on collaboration with artists and designers[2]. It is yet uncertain how such a divide will pan out in other regions like Asia or Africa[2], but may these already have one or more distinct biohacking community(ies), such as the one that operates in a starkly distinct cultural setting in China?

Yet regardless of their particular characters, DIY-bio represents a safety and security risk. We attempted to buy the carcinogenic dye used for electrophoresis, Ethidium bromide, and it is easily purchased, even distributed, from the Chinese online shopping website Taobao[4]. Even more alarming, and truly a public threat, are finding by us that flu viruses artificially injected into guinea pigs to promote mutations were on sale in the same website. It really seemed a step away before true bioweapons can be made and yet sold.

How to tackle such threats? To find some idea, we conducted interviews with relevant persons as below.