BIO-HACKERS FOR A BIOWORLD (TM) 

The surprises that emerge after any development almost always astound even creators of the inventions. Executives at the Apple Computer head office and research centre in Cupertino, California discussed with me this recurring theme. No one expected the micro computer to evolve so quickly and certainly no one forecast desktop publishing or the desktop video phenomenon. In many cases amateurs did more than their share. Earlier times and developments gave us amateur astronomers and "ham" radio operators. All believed impossible at one time. Such knowledge required 20 years of formal training.

Today we are seeing the first results of the exploding field of biotechnology. For a decade now rumors, reports and descriptions of some of these products have been hitting the media. I have spent several months in Silicon Valley and environs looking into these rumors and facts among food, computer and other companies.

In an almost duplicate track pattern, the field of biotechnology is following that of the computer. Initially, the field is composed and controlled by a small coterie of extremely well educated (or indoctrinated) and skilled researchers working in highly expensive laboratories. Like the white-garbed priests of the first mainframe computer operations, they are protected by the glass walls surrounding their laboratories and by the mystique their work has engendered. Like those who preceded them along the silicon computer path, they have done little to dispel the myth that they alone are qualified for such work and that they alone should be allowed to handle such dangerous (?) work. Both the public and government support this view. Wait till you see what's coming now!

When computers were first developed even the head of IBM said the world only needed half a dozen computers. So much for experts. A new development will shock the ivory tower denizens of bio-tech, perhaps even more than Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak shocked IBM by turning out, in a garage with $500, the computer that grew to be the $6 billion Apple operation of today. Every mother wishes her son would turn into a Jobs, Wozniak, or Bill Gates of Microsoft ... all running billion dollar corporations before the age of 35!

These new shockers will be known as bio-hackers -- young and smart kids mainly, with no access either through training or economic status to million dollar laboratories. They will do with pennies things that large laboratories have not even begun to think possible. The kid's tools? Gene blasters. Devices, which even I might be able to make for $20, that will allow genes from one living organism to be transfered to another. Initially, they will be rustic, perhaps two interlocking tubes, resembling hydraulic cylinders. Such a gene transfer device could compete with the millions of dollars worth of high tech toys produced for "approved" laboratories (as any bachelor cook can tell you a micro-wave makes all things possible). Universities, governments and the public will be shocked. Laws will be quickly passed (containing the usual legal defects that will please defence lawyers) to curtail such entrepreneurship.

This is the real danger. It isn't military might that controls the world or makes a country strong anymore. It's economic might. We live now in a different time and space. Bio-hackers may become outcasts here but in other lands, mainly Asian, there are those watching who know the fantasic economic benefits of such youthful probing. They will offer dreams laced with mountains of cash to such original thinkers to move to their lands where they will be treated like the heros of the new world that they are. The mere invention of the stirrup allowed man to build kingdoms. The astralabe enabled Portugal to quickly become the world's leading maritime and economic power and to create empires. Bio-hackers could turn a small country, that recognizes the new game and its players, into a world leader very quickly. Moral: Don't throw away the seeds before you know what they can grow. BIO-BLASTING APPARATUS & PROCEDURE

To enter the world of bio-technology three elements are crucial: a willing attitude, an open and inquisitive mind and time. Plenty of time. Necessary physical equipment can be found in pharmacies, veterinarian supply houses, plant nursery supply stores, supermarket shelves, hardware stores and from medical equipment supply distributors.

Such equipment would consist of shakers, vacuum pumps, centrifuges, distillation and microwave equipment and a refrigerator and a blender. Readily obtainable and consumable supplies would include commercial grade sugar, salts, acids bases, alcohol, minerals, vitamins, antibiotics and hormones.

The one unit you have to make is a gene blaster. It looks like a tiny pile driver. One cylinder about three inches in diameter provides the outside wall. The inside, closely-fitted sealed cylinder, loaded with lead, provides the mass required. When everything is in place you drive the smaller, inside cylinder down through the larger cyclinder, much like a hydraulic ram.

An intimate knowledge of morphological change (of size, shape, color or structure) must be acquired. One must also understand phenol extraction and ethanol precipitation of DNA. Such knowledge is available in most libraries or data banks.

The procedure is deceptively simple: Mix DNA with tungston particles. Explode, via the gene blaster, through a stainless steel (preferably) petri dish with a small hole in the center. Under the dish, place and evacuate a vacuum chamber. In the vacuum chamber place appropriate leaves, stems or cells. Propagate and check for transformation. You won't always be lucky. Try again. With bacteria it's even easier. After that you might be ready for the animal world. Somebody will be winning a Nobel prize in this field. It could be you!

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