BioCurious officially opens. Now offering limited-time membership rate!
Hello BioCurious-ities!
We bring you most excellent news: BioCurious - the first hackerspace for bio - has launched. So much has happened since our recent opening! In the past few weeks, we’ve:
- Successfully opened and staffed the lab. (Thanks, volunteers! You rock!)
- Held a well-attended series of classes, ranging from the Business of Biotech to Advanced Personal Genomics to a Genetic Engineering 101 lab, with many more classes to come.
- Hosted meetups and get-togethers, including special events for the Thiel 20 Under 20 fellows, and a well-attended Project Brainstorming night, hosted by professional scientists, with more to come.
- Expanded our suite of equipment through donations and strategic purchases.
For a limited time, we’re offering a special membership rate of $100/month. Members who sign-up now will lock-in this rate for a year. (We’ll also grandfather in current members at this price). The introductory rate is only available for a limited time, so sign up now!
Also, if you pay for a full year, you get 2 months free - that's a savings of $200!
Science is your friend. Learn new skills, meet cofounders, build your proof-of-concept. Join now and get started!
Equipment
We’ve got new equipment coming in all the time...
- Just this month, we got the donation of a qPCR machine (new: $15,000; used: $5,000 -- thanks to John Schloendorn for the donation!).
- We’re working on getting more lab scales, more refrigeration space, a UV spectrophotometer, and a flow hood. Let us know what you need, and we’ll get it on the list.
- We've just acquired 3 chemical storage cabinets (thanks, Reto Stamm!), which brings us closer to allowing a much wider variety of chemicals in the lab.
- And, new couches in our reception area (thanks, Kristina and Raymond!). We’ll count that as butt-resting equipment.
Purchasing reagents can be expensive, especially when you have to purchase more than you need. What you pay for dry ice shipping pushes these prices even higher. That's why we're opening an on-site reagent store which will sell smaller quantities of commonly used reagents, at much better rates. Keep an eye out for news of the reagent store opening later this month!
We will carry:
- electrophoresis reagents (i.e. Agarose, running buffers, DNA dyes),
- growth media,
- PCR master mix,
- lab E. Coli strains,
- And many more -- all biotech quality and contamination-free
Members get a 15% discount on all store items. As always, members can get specialty reagents shipped to and stored at BioCurious.
Free Supplies!
We've created a depot of supplies which are provided free of charge to all members. Free supplies include pipette tips, safety gloves, denatured ethanol, ultrapure water, and bleach. These basic supplies are available to members, making it easier to do basic lab work, and to keep the lab clean and safe. We also maintain a surplus “hack this” area -- donated supplies which are free for members to use for their own projects.
New Equipment Classes -- Free to Members!
To help new members get up to speed, we're working on a series of classes covering basic lab techniques and “how-to” equipment use. This includes classes on pipetting, centrifugation, sterile technique, running the qPCR machine, and more. All of these classes will be free to members, along with the basic orientation and safety classes.
We hope this helps you get in the lab and doing biotech.
Now is the best time to get a membership, take a class, or start a project.
Come be a part of the next big thing to come out of a Silicon Valley garage!
Six year-olds can do this. What's stopping you?
