That article mentions the cost of equipment. In academia, we used to semi-seriously discuss building our own stuff. We generally didn't because even basic engineering, fabrication, and firmware require a lot of time and effort. (We were occasionally forced to when we needed something extremely specialized that simply wasn't available off the shelf.)
It seems like open source equipment designs don't exist largely because they don't usually make sense for academia or industry to fund. I wonder if that approach might be viable for this type of endeavor, since it would allow designs to be shared between groups and would lower the cash barrier to that of the raw materials? I'm not sure how you'd navigate the patent minefield, but if successful I think it would benefit society at large.
Open source equipment has been tried a lot in the DIY bio space, but a lot of it falls short because the used market is too good in biotech IMO
Lots of medical and academic labs liquidate, and you'd think that the market would compensate and labs would pick up used equipment, but that typically doesn't happen - probably for regulatory reasons and because (I've found) academic labs aren't typically in the position to take risks on equipment.
For example, an eBay seller ain't going to be able to test a PCR machine, so they sell it FOR-PARTS, which makes it so academic labs won't touch it. Then, you can swing in and buy perfectly fine $2,000 equipment for $150. Best deal I ever got was $350 for a fully functioning lab robot.
The SoundBio people are great, and there's lots of labs locally! They're really suffering right now though, because a revenue stream is often education.
https://crosscut.com/2019/03/seattles-only-community-lab-put...
That article mentions the cost of equipment. In academia, we used to semi-seriously discuss building our own stuff. We generally didn't because even basic engineering, fabrication, and firmware require a lot of time and effort. (We were occasionally forced to when we needed something extremely specialized that simply wasn't available off the shelf.)
It seems like open source equipment designs don't exist largely because they don't usually make sense for academia or industry to fund. I wonder if that approach might be viable for this type of endeavor, since it would allow designs to be shared between groups and would lower the cash barrier to that of the raw materials? I'm not sure how you'd navigate the patent minefield, but if successful I think it would benefit society at large.