• A new DIY-Bio lab is being planned in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia by Apneet Aseffa’s group; it will extend their existing DIY AI/Robotics lab to serve local masters, PhD and high-school students with hands-on biotechnology projects.  

• FDA drug-development paperwork was quantified: an initial IND filing for Phase 1AB is ~800 pages, swelling to ~15 000 pages by Phase IV and costing roughly US $250 k in labor alone before legal, insurance, patient-care and assay expenses are added.  

• DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) was debated as a universal solvent and potential bio-hacking reagent; participants noted its toxicity in pure form, shipping restrictions, natural biogenic origin from plankton (the “sea smell”), and the possibility of microbial or chemical synthesis, citing a 1977 paper (PMC204052) showing bacterial DMSO production.  

• Vutral is designing a compact bioreactor/incubator for small-scale microbiology work, leveraging prior experience with Candida culture, while the group weighed the practicality of ordering versus synthesizing lab chemicals.  

• A GitHub issue was referenced in which pre-existing SQLAlchemy models for a “patch-clamp microdialysis Beowulf cluster” were retro-fitted with a Flask web interface to give a PI remote monitoring of dish health.  

• Protein scaffolding for metabolic enzymes was recommended to boost bacterial productivity and pathway efficiency; a 2013 review (DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2013.01.003) was shared via PubMed and LibGen as supporting evidence.