←back to thread

Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

(www.ycombinator.com)
1106 points sama | 1 comments | 15 Sep 16 18:05 UTC | HN request time: 0.325s | source
Show context
etendue ◴[15 Sep 16 18:37 UTC] No.12508615[source]▶
How would one go about meaningfully contributing to solving problems in genetics without having done the work leading to a MD or PhD (or both)?
replies(12): >>12508778 #>>12508797 #>>12508867 #>>12508944 #>>12508966 #>>12509126 #>>12509458 #>>12509642 #>>12510494 #>>12511112 #>>12511652 #>>12511653 #
1. LordHumungous ◴[16 Sep 16 00:38 UTC] No.12511112[source]▶
So, I can't answer about solving big problems, but I did genetic engineering research in grad school on bacteria. One could very easily conduct serious genetic engineering in one's bedroom for less that $500 or so. Of course this is fairly basic stuff, but still, you'd be amazed what is possible with very little equipment.

For example, there is a yearly competition called iGEM, which is synthetic biology competition for undergrads. Some of the stuff they do with limited resources is quite impressive.

http://igem.org/Main_Page