Biohacking: A Novel Practice

As soon as you read the topic, you must have taken biohacking as that familiar term known as hacking. We mostly come across this word listening to news of cybercrime since we are typically acquainted with that particular hacking. Let’s find out what it’s all about.

Biohacking is an emergent biotechnological practice (also called citizen or do-it-yourself biology) in which different communities, people and small groups get together to explore biology and do different experiments using the same protocols followed in different institutional labs. It might lead to big changes in your life as some biohackers do easy tryouts which can fairly impact your health or lifestyle. The word hacking originally means to find new and clever ways to do the same actions bringing lifelong changes. It might attract some researchers or anyone with curious mind to initiate it as a hobby as a non-profit effort for its community learning, to solve a collective problem, as a science innovation or to start his own business. For instance, estimating the effects of DNA on plants growth or manipulating genes to make a certain plant glow in dark.

Types of Biohacking:

Today, biohacking is spreading like a fire in a jungle as its all about learning about things by building, and trying to make new structures or modifications to see what happens. Human beings are made to try new things and today we see countless experiments and discoveries taking place worldwide.  Though it has many types, the most famous are DIY biology, Nutrigenomics, and Grinder.

1.      DIY biology

Do it yourself biology (or DIY bio) is a kind of biohacking lead by persons with knowledge and skill in scientific areas. What do they do? They act as a bridge between the expert scientific officer’s experience and the common person who wants to learn the same hacks in easy ways. They share methods and instructions to support other unskilled individuals in conducting experiments which can be performed anywhere without controlled environmental conditions such as offices or laboratories.

2.      Nutrigenomics

As the name suggests, Nutrigenomics emphasize on the interaction between food intake and your genes. It is rather controversial but interesting form of biohacking as its laid on the idea that it’s absolutely easy to know your body’s genetic expression by measuring the effect of different nutrients on your health over a certain time. Another enticing aspect is that it also evaluates the behavioral changes as a result of diverse nutrients consumption.

3.      Grinder

This is a bit odd type of biohacking as it incorporates the idea that every human body part can be visualized and is hackable. This means that any kind of change can be introduced into the body upon willingness. It also leads to becoming cyborgs in which bodies are modified with special gadgets, implants, injections and whatever its admissible in the body to make the desired version.

Using a Blood test to Biohack

Blood testing can be effectively used for biohacking. It can play a vital role in informing you about your body’s different nutrient levels along with the blood components such as cell count and plasma. It can also keep a measure of the effect of any new food intake on the maintenance of optimum vitamin level aiding in the regulation of particular biological function. In case, getting a blood test before and after the consumption of vitamin B12 supplements can tell you the qualitative analysis of those supplements on your B12 ratio in the body.

Interrelation between biohacking and biotechnology

There arises question about whether biohacking and biotechnology are more or less the same or not. Biotechnology is relatively a vast field leading to the study of diverse biological processes to update the technological progression. It can initiate from consuming bacterial strains for fermenting beer to editing genes by CRISPR technology. They both are interrelated as developments or innovations in biotechnology mostly influence experiments done in biohacking e.g. for unique ideas and figure, many biohackers make use of advances in biotechnology. Similarly, biotechnologists also look up to tests done by biohackers to notify directions in biotechnology investigation. Grinders are supposed to be the utmost active followers of biotechnology for biohacking.

Talking about its safety, it would be better to say that it all depends upon the type of biohacking to be precise. Many forms of biohacking are much safer such as taking certain food supplements to ensure its impact on our bodies and bringing alterations in diet to check its role. Some beauty procedure can also be called safe related to skin. Few biohacking practices often lie on the unsafe side as some of the grinder’s experiments focus around practices that might not be considered ethical and harmless. Experimenting on humans, even if it’s just on yourself, is still generally reflected a big taboo in biology because of the unintended consequences or harm that can result. Nonetheless, every procedure has its pros and cons and it all relies on us how do we use these newer techniques and ensure the safety of ourselves and fellow beings

By: Roha Tariq