BioCurious

Come find out at the new biology collaborative lab space where citizen science moves out of the classroom and into the community. Following the successful example of hackerspaces such as Noisebridge, Langdon Labs, Hacker Dojo, and co-working spaces such as the Hub, we're pleased to offer the first Bay Area space dedicated to Non Institutional Biology. Got an idea for a startup? Join the DIY, "garage biology" movement and found a new breed of biotech.

How is this possible?
Governments and big business once dominated computing. Today, entrepreneurs and hobbyists play leading roles in developing computing technologies and products, both hardware and software. The tools for serious biological engineering are getting cheaper all the time, but aspiring entrepreneurs lack affordable access to a complete set of lab equipment outside of a university lab or high priced industrial commercial space. Perhaps you have a day job in biotech already, but have neither the time nor freedom to nurture your pet project at work. Maybe you are seeking a career in the life sciences, are between jobs, or are a recent graduate wanting to improve your skill set. Whatever your current level of interest or ability, BioCurious has an option for you.

BioCurious:
Education, Collaboration, Innovation

Education, Outreach, Community building.
Science was once a cultural activity, carried out by wealthy “gentlemen scholars” who had the leisure and material resources to experiment. The 20th century saw an unprecedented centralization of science around an industrial model. The plummeting costs of enabling technologies has brought meaningful biological research back within reach of the independent citizen scientist. From Bio-Art to BioFuels, the wave of next generation biotech applications is set to transform our culture and economy. BioCurious will be Ground Zero for this revolution.

Entrepreneurship Incubation, Mentoring, Angel Investment.
The Bay Area is home to many networks that help entrepreneurs launch web businesses with a shoestring budget and a dream. Similar support infrastructure does not yet exist for biotech ventures. Until recently, biotech has required large start up costs. An ecosystem of mentorship and a network of investors who understand the possibilities for lean-biotech-start ups to leverage shared resources and amplify their creative efforts to have disproportionate commercial impact, is urgently needed. BioCurious will catalyze the formation of this system.

As always, BioCurious promotes the safe and responsible practice of science. Therefore, we emphasize education in everything we do. Remember: safety first!

We are raising capital for the creation of “BioCurious,” a collaborative science incubator space. BioCurious will be a place of learning, collaboration and professional research.

BioCurious members - you will have ready access to equipment necessary to do synthetic biology work. You don't need a background in science. BioCurious will be a safe haven for you to learn by the most effective route possible - through experience. BioCurious be a friendly, educational environment to... experiment. And don't worry about your IP - it's yours.

BioCurious' founders have been brought together by their shared interest to create a community of innovative thinkers. Our top aim is to make BioCurious a possibility for its members, a category in which we'll also include ourselves.

We believe that true innovation comes from creative, intelligent teams of entrepreneurs, those operating outside the worlds of conservative academic grant funding or nearsighted commercial investment. BioCurious will serve as a scientific resource and a community for innovators to fully flesh out their own ideas, or to meet other great thinkers to form a team and address a challenge.

We recognize that the prohibitively high price of scientific equipment prevents many interested parties - and potential game-changers - from entering the scientific field. This has presented the great need for cost-effective research, which is exactly where we step in with BioCurious. BioCurious will make its lab equipment and space available to the innovators of the future at a hugely discounted rate. Resources will be made available at a realizable cost for those at the earliest stage in business. Given the proper facility and tools, life-science research can be surprisingly inexpensive.

However, since creating a group lab space is not free, we need your support to make the launch of BioCurious possible. We have recently launched our startup fundraising campaign. This will enable us to achieve financial self-sustainability, assuming that a sufficient number of permanent members can be signed up within three months of operations (please see membership levels and budget breakdown).

We seek a critical mass of 25 founding members. With membership in place and with the success of our fundraising campaign, we will be able to open the doors to the first-of-its-kind biohackerspace.

Several supporters have already signed on as founding members (see Membership section). If you have BioCurious-ity and want to get in on the ground floor of something new, email eri@biocurious.org