Doing molecular biology is becoming easy. It’s facile. It’s easier to cock-up baking a Victoria Sponge than to fail a SDS-PAGE experiment – trust me. The tools are easier to use, the reagents purer, and the equipment getting cheaper. This progress means that a lay person with the perquisite levels of intelligence and resource can quite easily dabble in molecular biology. The gentleman (or lady (!)) scientist – a staple figure of Victorian Britain – can be quickly making a comeback. With this rise in accessibility, recent graduate students in biochemistry are often hit by a one-two punch of anxiety and inferiority when they are about to accept their £9,000 (soon to be £27,000) diploma. A disquieting revelation dawns insidiously; I have spent the past three years learning to follow various recipes which anyone with the inclination and resource could follow.
Granted, biochemistry graduates are (hopefully) very well versed in the molecular basis for these recipes, with an intimate knowledge of which atoms go where, when and how along the metabolic pathway. That knowledge is largely defunct however when the application of the science can be achieved in the relatively simplistic terms of “add 300µl of colourless liquid A to 300µl of colourless liquid B, leave at 4˚C for 30 minutes, measure fluorescence at 450nm”. Although that may sound unduly technical, the reality is that after a half-hour introduction to the workings of a pipette and fluorimeter, the exercise becomes wonderfully (or woefully) easy, with the greater part of the brain being occupied with a crossword during the 30 minute wait.
With this greater accessibility, the application of biotechnological advances is far more amenable. Putting molecular biology into the hands of the curious, a notion espoused by groups such as DIYBio or the BioPunk Movement, may well create a generation of gentleman scientists. A Gentleman (or lady) scientist, tinkering with bits of DNA and protein, may well stumble across the secret of life. That wasn’t me being facetious – Einstein came up with the theory of special relativity sitting on his arse after a hard day in the patent office.
There are limitations however imposed on the gentleman molecular biologist scientist. Firstly, it’s widely believed that there are no more “low hanging fruit” discoveries in the scientific arena. All the easy stuff has already been found. Basic research of life processes is difficult-difficult-lemon-difficult, and it takes more than a couple of professors, some funding, and an attractive/gifted PhD student to make any new discoveries.
Secondly, and related to the first point, is that the stay-at-home scientist is limited in their scope of research by the proper grown-up scientists. Equipment especially can be highly specialised to certain aspects of the science. It’s hard to imagine any gentleman structural biologists – a science which requires access to an extremely powerful X-Ray sources.
Finally, there is the serious concern of bioterrorism, or more precisely, the neologism “bioerrorism”. Bioerrorism is a term given to a biohazard cock-up on grand proportions – either putting themselves at risk or the wider (global?) public. Bioerrorism may be over hyped, but certain chemicals which are prevalent in biochemical labs are pretty nasty. There’s certainly more potential for disaster in a home-made biochemistry lab then in a beetle collectors or amateur botanist.
One huge advantage that the Gentleman Scientist has over the student however is that he can go whenever his mind wanders. Assuming he is self-financed, his pocket decides how to fund the science – rather than a bureaucratic research council. Whether it matters or not that no-one in necessarily concerned with the ethics of his research may raise concern.
More people practicing biotechnology is surely nothing but a good thing; inoculating the public with some knowledge of biotech will hopefully dampen the torrent of Frankenstein-Huxley-Faust-Piranhamoose media frenzy which accompanies any discovery or achievement in biochemistry or biotechnology.
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