Human Genomes on SALE: 99% OFF!

genome sequencing for everyone

The price of DNA sequencing your genome has dropped 99.999999% since 2003. For those of you discussing the “falling price of DNA sequencing”, it’s time to stop. Sure, it’s fun to think about a future when sequencing genomes will be so much cheaper. But we’re here. Today, you can sequence your genome for $3,000. This isn’t even news, those prices were announced 3 months ago and no one got out their party hats.  I’ve even heard the Beijing Genomics Institute offers $800 genomes when you buy 10 genomes at once. Now what do we do with it? MORE…

The $500,000 DNA Sequencer – Tear Down

BioCurious has amazing friends. We bought a surplus Illumina Genome Analyzer DNA sequencer. For $1.

This Illumina Genome Analyzer (GA) DNA sequencer is from 2008 and originally sold for $500,000. Because of the dropping cost of DNA sequencing, it would be more costly for BioCurious to use this older sequencer than to just using a DNA sequencing service. We were lucky enough to have some friends at Illumina who sold us the sequencer cheap. We decided the best use would be to take it apart to see how it works. Derek Jacoby and Raymond McCauley taught us how “Next Generation” DNA sequencing works and we spent Sunday taking the sequencer apart. MORE…

The best prototype is a busted one

spf_shingling_thDocumentation is wonderful. I love people with the patience and interest to explain their team’s work with illustrations, photos, videos, and write-ups. It helps get everyone to understand what the problem was, whether the audience is your own team, supporters, and customers. “Learning from mistakes” is supposed to be easy, but in my experience what comes naturally is making the same mistake over and over again. With documentation you can learn about a discovery, appreciate your work months and years later, solve new problems, or just bask in “how dumb we were back then”! MORE…

DNA Sequencing my Guts

human microbiome

Any instructions with a picture titled “Amount of material needed for fecal sample” have to be either mundane or awesome. In this case it’s totally awesome. These instructions are for the American Gut microbiome project that arrived in the mail last week. They demand to sequence the DNA of bacteria in my guts.

Your body is said to have its own micro biome of many different types of bacteria living in and on you. You probably did a report on your favorite “biome” as a 5th grade science project. Your favorite was probably “Tundra”, “Desert”, or “Marine” because those are awesome and probably no one in your class reported on “Grasslands”. On Earth, a “biome” is a classification of an area based on what’s living there. Biomes are distinct habitats. “Micro biome” is a new term that’s meant to define all the microbes in an area of your body.

MORE…

The $2,000 Biotech Classroom

Screen Shot 2013-04-21 at 11.39.20 AMBiomedical engineering is the most valuable college major. Getting high school students excited about biotech is a nightmare because it takes a ton of energy and time. Where’s the happy medium?

This is a rough guide of how to set up a high school classroom DNA lab. I’ve done a lot of work to make the process more simple for students and hobbyists and learned some tricks along the way. I hope these will save you hours of stress setting up your lab and keeping it running. Plus, I can rattle off all these steps as good as this guy rapping about 200 decimals of pi so I figured it would be best to write them down. MORE…

All about the Startup Visa Act

startup visa logoPlenty of smart, hardworking people come from outside the United States to work at tech companies, and some even come over to start their own companies. Some deal with immigration challenges, others have an easy time. I’ve heard a lot about the Startup Visa Act, so I wanted to understand how this bill might change startups.

The Startup Visa bill is designed to help foreign entrepreneurs start companies in the US. Great idea! So how will it work? The bill is readable through, though the formatting is crappy. Programers will enjoy the AND / OR logic used to construct the bill. I recommend you read it yourself.
MORE…

Prototype your Apartment

Screen Shot 2013-04-12 at 1.07.04 PM

Ever wonder what your apartment would look like if you moved everything around? I was wondering about that…

This is a 3D Sketchup model of my apartment and furniture. 15 minutes to measure dimensions with a only-slightly-bent metal yard stick, plus 1 hour to make a rough map including furniture. That first draft was enough to help me arrange my furniture so I can be near the window. And it helped me decide what size of bed I want, both King and Cal-king would take up tons of space, especially because of some quirks in the construction of my apartment; a queen bed fits right in. MORE…

Biggest news from the Facebook event

You’re teaching a class?

(Zuckerberg) Yeah, every week. It’s on how to build a business. Every Tuesday we go over one skill, and each group has a side project. When the class ends, they’ll come to Facebook and sell the products they’ve made, like they’re marketing them.

cool.

Ask anything: Thumb

IMG_4783Thumb” answers your most burning questions.

Have you been angry within the past hour?

I hate shots. My husband and son tricked me into the flu shot. I was pissed. Specially when I ended up in the hospital two months later with influenza b.
MORE…