Biohack

Embodied health movements (EHMs) advance their agendas by mediating the production, circulation, and revision of biomedical knowledge. To do this, their constituents become lay experts by blending their embodied experience of illness with self-taught technical knowledge. However, it is unclear how lay expertise is routinized within EHMs, and consequently, to what extent it can be made durable in long-term partnerships with credentialed experts. I follow the OpenAPS community-a group of people with type one diabetes who engineered an open-source 'artificial pancreas'-from their inception in the transient #WeAreNotWaiting movement to their research collaborations with endocrinologists and detente with the FDA...

PURPOSE/INTRODUCTION: Over the last decades, there has been increasing interest in biological stimulation or bioaugmentation after rotator cuff repair. So far, there is no consensus on the appropriate composition of biologicals or which patients would benefit most, and moreover, these biologicals are often expensive. However, there are other, non-pharmacological strategies that are also believed to achieve biological stimulation. This randomised controlled trial evaluates the possible cumulative effect of pragmatic application of cryobiomodulation, photobiomodulation and electrobiomodulation-collectively called biomodulation-on the bone-to-tendon healing process after rotator cuff repair...

Biohacking involves individuals determining, developing, and directing relevant activities to meet their personal biological goals. Biohacking fertility is a resilient method that trans and genderqueer people use to meet their reproductive and family-planning needs in the face of historic medical marginalization and oppression. In this study, nine participants were recruited from three different Facebook groups specific to queer and trans fertility, family planning, pregnancy, and parenting. Each participant's posts and comments to their respective Facebook group(s) were analyzed, followed by interviews with participants...

[Formula: see text] To feed an ever-growing population in an increasingly volatile climate, new technologies are required; is CRISPR the key to reducing food waste and creating climate change-proof crops?

If we are to adequately decipher and make sense of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ways in which large populations as well as their immune systems have responded to the virus, we ought to map the broader sociomaterial contexts in which a planetary health crisis, such as COVID-19, has been situated. Adopting a biophilosophical approach and feminist versions of Science and Technology Studies (STS), this article problematizes the virality of the war discourse and its tactical uses for the sake of biopower during COVID-19...

Genomic citizen science initiatives that promote public involvement in the study or manipulation of genetic information are flourishing. These initiatives are diverse and range from data donation studies, to biological experimentation conducted in home and community laboratories, to self-experimentation. Understanding the values that citizen scientists associate with their activities and communities can be useful to policy development for citizen science. Here, we report values-relevant data from qualitative interviews with 38 stakeholders in genomic citizen science...

The aim of this manuscript is to provide all the necessary information to build a simple benchtop mini centrifuge that is able to remove droplets and liquid film from the inner wall of PCR tubes and PCR strips following vortexing. Users can choose between two rotors: one can hold up to six tubes (1.5/2 ml, or 500 µl and 200 µl tubes with adapters) or two PCR strips. The design consists of only three printed parts (optimized to be printed without supports) and cheap off-the-shelf components (80 mm computer fan, switches, food container and power supply)...

Galls are abnormal plant growths induced by animals, especially insects, to foster their own developing offspring. Which molecular malware gall-inducers use to hack into the plant's genetic programs is unclear. In an aphid, a gene affecting gall color has been discovered, part of a large family of putative effectors.

The speed and scale of the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the limits of current health systems and the potential promise of non-establishment research such as "DIY" research. We consider one example of how DIY research is responding to the pandemic, discuss the challenges faced by DIY research more generally, and suggest that a "trust architecture" should be developed now to contribute to successful future DIY efforts.

Synthetic biology has the potential to positively transform society in many application areas, including medicine. In common with all revolutionary new technologies, synthetic biology can also enable crime. Like cybercrime, that emerged following the advent of the internet, biocrime can have a significant effect on society, but may also impact on peoples' health. For example, the scale of harm caused by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic illustrates the potential impact of future biocrime and highlights the need for prevention strategies...

BACKGROUND: As citizen science continues to grow in popularity, there remains disagreement about what terms should be used to describe citizen science activities and participants. The question of how to self-identify has important ethical, political, and practical implications to the extent that shared language reflects a common ethos and goals and shapes behavior. Biomedical citizen science in particular has come to be associated with terms that reflect its unique activities, concerns, and priorities...

INTRODUCTION: Efforts to understand and unlock the body's potential for regeneration have increased dramatically in recent years. So-called "biohacking" hopes to improve functionality and reverse disease processes. OBJECTIVES: This review will seek to summarize the available data for the use of platelet-rich plasma, cellular therapies, and other novel therapeutics within sexual medicine. METHODS: The PubMed database search was performed using the keywords "Stem cell therapy in Erectile dysfunction (ED)", "Gene therapy in ED", "Novel therapeutics for ED", and "Biohacking"...

CASE: We describe the case of a 26-year-old man with an infected Radio-Frequency-Identification/Near Field Communication (RFID/NFC) chip in the middle finger. The RFID/NFC chip was removed, the soft tissue debrided, and a pan-sensitive staphylococcus aureus was detected by sonication of the RFID/NFC chip. The patient was postoperatively treated with amoxicillin and clavulanic acid (24 hours iv, total 11 days) and an intrinsic plus splint which led to complete recovery. CONCLUSION: Modern body modifications can lead to infections which shouldn't be underestimated...

The biological risk landscape continues to evolve as developments in synthetic biology and biotechnology offer increasingly powerful tools to a widening pool of actors, including those who may consider carrying out a deliberate biological attack. However, it remains unclear whether it is the relatively large numbers of low-resourced actors or the small handful of high-powered actors who pose a greater biosecurity risk. To answer this question, this paper introduces a simple risk chain model of biorisk, from actor intent to a biological event, where the actor can successfully pass through each of N steps...

Wearable tech is leading way to embedded tech, i.e., implants inside the body designed to track and enhance human health and productivity among other things. Researchers have used Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) extensively to explain the factors influencing adoption of almost all technological innovations to date. Embedded tech, often referred to as biohacking, presents a unique set of factors that call for yet another revision of the model. Using diffusion of innovations, self-efficacy, and social exchange theory, a revision to the technology acceptance model is proposed with additional factors such as age and gender, embedded technology self-efficacy, perceived risk and privacy concerns to explain the adoption of embedded technologies within the human body...

During infection, the foodborne bacterial pathogen Listeria monocytogenes dynamically influences the gene expression profile of host cells. Infection-induced transcriptional changes are a typical feature of the host-response to bacteria and contribute to the activation of protective genes such as inflammatory cytokines. However, by using specialized virulence factors, bacterial pathogens can target signaling pathways, transcription factors, and epigenetic mechanisms to alter host gene expression, thereby reprogramming the response to infection...

Dominant forms of contemporary big-data based digital citizen science do not question the institutional divide between qualified experts and lay-persons. In our paper, we turn to the historical case of a large-scale amateur project on biogeographical birdwatching in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to show that networked amateur research (that produces a large set of data) can operate in a more autonomous mode. This mode depends on certain cultural values, the constitution of specific knowledge objects, and the design of self-governed infrastructures...

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No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.