DiVOC—Push To Talk

Your locale preferences have been saved. We like to think that we have excellent support for English in pretalx, but if you encounter issues or errors, please contact us!

How (some) biohackers tackle the COVID19 pandemic - an example
2020-09-05 , Schneider-Hoover
Language: English

The ongoing pandemic lead to a huge outburst of solidarity in academia and citizen science.
Hear about the journey of some of them :)


Rapid and exhaustive testing on SARS-CoV-2 is one of the key pillars of pandemic-control management.
The Biotech-Industry didn‘t miss their chance in pivoting this huge „market“ and sell their testing reagents to horrendous prices. Even in Nigeria one test still costs 60$.

We, the DIY-bio community & academical developmental aid organizations, are finally catching up: developing, validating and distributing open source test-protocols and the critical resources and knowledge to produce key elements (enzymes) by your own.

This approach to distribute DNA-rings (plasmids), necessary for producing enzymes in bacteria, can help cut cost tenfold or more, rendering low-resource regions more independent from the patent- & price-war on Biotech and heavily limiting supply chain dependencies.

You can submit questions about this talk in this pad.

See also: Talk Slides mit Hyperlinks (4.1 MB)