A DNA laboratory for everybody: Bento Lab
Posted by PhilippBoeing, on 14 April 2016
You can connect with Bento Lab on Twitter and Facebook, and support the project on Kickstarter.
What is Bento Lab?
Bento Lab is a minimal molecular biology laboratory, containing the essentials tools for genetic analysis. There’s a centrifuge, a PCR thermocycler to copy DNA, and a system for gel electrophoresis, to visualise DNA.
How was the idea of Bento Lab born?
Bento Lab was born out of a series of workshops and projects that my co-founder Bethan and I undertook since 2012. We were very interested in exploring how different groups outside of academia and industry interacted with emerging biosciences, groups such as artists and designers, parents and teachers, and hobby scientists. In particular, we were fascinated by the maker community, a growing network of enthusiasts engaging with electronics, computing and other technologies as a hobby. In molecular biology, a small but growing community of Do-it-yourself biologists was emerging, analogous to the maker community. We thought this was very interesting and could potentially play a really interesting role of fostering hands-on literacy for topics like genetics.
But we noticed quickly, that the community was still in its infancy. There were many interesting open hardware projects, but for many newcomers the lack of guidance could be a bit frustrating. Seemingly every week, emails would be sent to the mailing list asking how to get started. Because there were no easy to use and affordable starter tools, for many their initial spark of interest didn’t turn into a longer-term hobby. Bethan and I saw a real need for an infrastructure for engaging with molecular biology as an ambitious beginner, something that could accompany you on the journey from someone with an interest to a seasoned citizen scientist or even a professional. We saw that these things existed in other communities, for example with Arduino in electronics. This is what we had in mind for Bento Lab.
Kickstarter and beyond
Of course, we are only at the beginning. What’s very exciting is that we got such an overwhelming amount of support for our Kickstarter campaign. For the past 6 months we have beta-tested Bento Lab devices with users from all around the world, and we are very excited to work with all of our Kickstarter supporters in the coming months and see their projects come to life.
We’ve also designed a Starter Kit for Bento Lab with experiments designed for learning all the basic procedures, how to interpret results, how to ask for help, how to be a responsible scientist – all those aspects. With this project, we don’t just want to build an easy-to-use laboratory, but foster a community.
Although we reached our target for funding on Kickstarter, we have two more exciting stretch goals that we’re moving towards. We’ve been approached by many schools and teachers about using Bento Lab in the classroom and this is really exciting for us. If we reach £150,000 in funding, we can fund a pilot programme to work with teachers, education organisations and academic partners to create teaching materials for hands-on genetics in the classroom. Personally, I think this could be really significant and I would have loved to have done practical genetics experiments when I was in school.
If you know of anyone who you think we should talk to for the Bento Lab project in general or the educational pilot in particular, please get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.
(18 votes)
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I am amazed
I am a possible Father and hurt by the fact I need this device to secure my family
My only and first little baby girl
And im not sure
Im scared to take any Covid risk so I like too ask how much for a kit
God bless you and your company