How Open Source Biology May Rock Your World

Sam Dean | O Static | October 3, 2008

Here at OStatic, we're always interested in efforts to apply open source principles to efforts outside the software realm. Drew Endy, an open source biologist currently working at Stanford, is a good example of why. Along with several researchers at MIT, Endy is working on synthetic biology and the engineering of standardized biological components and devices, known as BioBricks.

Endy is also founder of the BioBricks Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by engineers and scientists from MIT, Harvard, and U.C. San Francisco, focused on open source biotechnology. Just as open source software is often shared in online repositories, the BioBricks Foundation has a registry online for open source biological parts. Here's more on how these efforts may change the world, following open source principles.

When Esquire magazine recently rounded up its 75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century, Drew Endy made the list. Here is how Esquire describes his efforts:

"Synthetic biology holds the promise to create life as it could be--grains that cure disease, gourds that grow into shelter, fuel made for pennies from yeast. But right now it's a field that is as unregulated as it is young. Endy, an assistant professor at Stanford, is laying the essential foundation through an open-source collection of BioBrick parts--strands of DNA in standardized shapes that can snap together like Legos--and his upcoming Parts Fab, a nonprofit institute that will be one half BioBrick factory, one half open-source library."