• A proposal was floated to encode the ~15 core organic-chemistry reaction mechanisms (addition, elimination, substitution, rearrangement, redox, etc.) into graph-grammar rules so that software could automatically generate multi-step synthetic routes from simple precursors to any target molecule, enabling a “chemical microfactory” or microfluidic synthesizer.

• Participants reviewed maskless-lithography microfluidic DNA-synthesis workflows that project patterns onto microscope slides for in-situ oligo synthesis, shared links to phosphoramidite chemistry papers and open microfluidic DNA-synthesizer designs (http://heybryan.org/books/papers/microfluidics/synthesis/), and discussed alignment challenges.

• Ultra-low-cost microscopy innovations were explored, including water-droplet lenses (2×–10× magnification), electrowetting-based liquid lenses for adjustable focus, origami-folded plastic lenses, and CD-pickup-based AFM cantilever readout; step-by-step guides and academic papers were circulated.

• A paper on automatically generating bond-graph models of entire chemical-reactor systems was highlighted (http://heybryan.org/books/papers/bondgraphs/Automatic%20Generation%20of%20Bond%20Graph%20Models%20of%20Process%20Plants.pdf) as a route to formal design and optimization of micro-reactors.

• Discussion of Fritz et al.’s 2000 Science paper on cantilever-array detection of single-base DNA mismatches via differential surface stress emphasized the practicality of high-throughput readout using compact-disk optical pickups, with links to instrumentation papers and arXiv feeds.

• Open data standards for physical quantities were evaluated, including RDF vocabularies (s-ten.eu NOTE-units, W3C MathML-units) and scixml for representing units and reaction data in machine-readable form for automated synthesis planners.

• A biological optical detector concept was proposed: a black-and-white image sensor built from an array of biotinylated, light-gated ion channels, with bacteriorhodopsin suggested as a potentially useful protein for gene-synthesis applications.

• Participants described a microfluidic technique in which live bacteria are glued to microchannel walls and act as pressure-driven pumps, noting that the reference is in the engineering library literature.

• Accessible separation methods for DIY bio labs were mentioned, including straw-based chromatography and spiral microfilters for protein separation.