Biohackers | Red Pepper

" ... A book investigating biohacking is overdue, but Delfanti’s offering is not that book, despite the title. Actual DIY biohackers only feature in the final chapter of what would be more accurately described as a consideration of the overall open science biohacking ethic. The author extends these hacker values to include those of both public-sector ‘rebel’ and Italian virologist Ilaria Capua in her battle with the World Health Organisation over restricted access to avian flu data, and of ‘bad boy’ billionaire biotechnologist Craig Venter, when he dipped his toes into open science with the open-access publishing of the results of his privately funded Global Ocean Sampling Expedition to collect and sequence marine microbe genomes. This is not to criticise Delfanti. He offers a novel insight yet to be recognised amid the cheering in some parts of the left of more traditionally comp-sci hacker-related efforts such as Wikileaks, Bitcoin, Pirate Parties, file-sharing and of course actual hacking itself. This insight is that hacking, whether of the bio or programming type – in garages, public universities or on Venter’s yacht – may be known for its radical anti-authoritarian vision but is fundamentally ambivalent about capitalism ..."