- Nature article “How DIY technologies are democratizing science” (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03193-5) was highlighted as a mainstream overview of the open-science movement.  
- The open-source bioreactor project at https://openbioeconomy.org/projects/open-source-bioreactor/ was shared as a concrete example of low-cost, community-built lab hardware.  
- Adam Marblestone asked on Twitter which organisms synthetic biology has yet to exploit beyond E. coli and yeast, prompting discussion of untapped biological chassis.  
- Conversation noted the outsized influence of the MIT/Harvard “inner circle” (Church and Boyden labs), citing claims that George Church’s group alone hosts 100+ researchers and spun out 16 startups in one year (reference: http://arep.med.harvard.edu/pdf/DeFrancesco_gclab_2019.pdf).  
- A patent on “Modulation of enzymatic polynucleotide synthesis using chelated divalent cations” (US20190323050A1) was linked as an example of IP emerging from the Church lab ecosystem.