Citizen Science in Oakland: By the People, for the People

By: Hope Henderson Through the atrium of an Oakland, CA community center, and down a narrow, paint-spattered hallway, sits Counter Culture Labs (CCL). This bocce-ball-court-turned-research-laboratory has been the east bay home for citizen science and biohacking since 2012. Ongoing projects at CCL include the Real Vegan Cheese project, which is programming yeast to produce milk proteins that can be turned into “real” cheese. Open Insulin aims to develop an open source protocol to produce a low-cost, generic version of insulin. In the Art-n-Science group, people make art by doing things like growing different colored bacteria in patterns to create petri dish paintings. Says CCL co-founder Patrik D’haeseleer: “We wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun.” I sat down with Maureen Muldavin, president of Counter Culture Labs, to find out more about the ethics and ethos of biohacking and citizen science. Muldavin taught herself molecular biology after leaving college prematurely due to health challenges. Muldavin sees her role as that of a facilitator, stewarding a space where other people can do the scientific research they want to—and that she believes they have the right to.