region, and we also see that access
to scientific equipment is not so even
across the board.
To give some quick numbers, Germany
has approximately 82M people, and a
scientific budget of about 100B euros.
While somewhere like Nigeria, which
is also considered a powerhouse of
science on its respective continent,
has 186M people but only a scientific
budget of 490M euros. That’s a huge
difference. While initial resources are
certainly a problem, the problem gets
magnified when these budgets ac-
tually have to be used to purchase
equipment. We think the classical pro-
duction model results in equipment
with high price tags. So, we’re focusing
on a lean and open-source production
model, allowing us to come in and level
the playing field by making equipment
more affordable.
Our first attempt at doing this is with
the FlyPi, which is essentially an all-
in-one biology lab. We think it is pretty
great. The structure at the moment
is completely 3D printed while the
hardware is based on the Raspberry
Pi and Arduino units. We’ve also pro-
grammed a graphical user interface
to ease the use of the modules, wh ich
range from high-resolution micros-
copy to optogenetics to fluorescence
imaging to thermogenetics to behav-
ioral tracking. The best part is that
it is all open-source, modifiable, and
was validated experimentally against
the high-price-tagged competitors’
instruments. A more detailed descrip-
tion can be found in the recently pub-
lished paper in PLOS Biology [1].
Great, I like where you’re going with
this. I understand that you are not
only interested in making money, but
also helping the community. Is pro-
viding affordable equipment what
you mean by this?
Well, leveling the playing field by pro-
viding affordable equipment is cer-
tainly one aspect. With that being said,
we definitely plan to do much more
than that. For example, we are actively
involved with one NGO called Trend In
Africa. We’ve given workshops in vari-
ous countries in Africa to teach people
how to build and use the FlyPi. Not
only that, but also how they can lev-
erage from the available open-source
The FlyPi (left) can give you images like this (right)
technology out there to build their
own scientific equipment. From these
workshops, we’ve seen first-hand
how access to a powerful new tool can
transform a community and give birth
to a new wave of excited scientists.
Ideally, our collaborations wouldn’t
stop with one region or with one NGO.
This idea of putting powerful scientific
tools into people’s hands has a lot of
potential to improve the way science
is done.
Last but not least, we are planning to
set up some pay structures that in-
volve some sort of “for every X FlyPis
purchased, we will donate one to a
charity organization” idea.
Now, we also aren’t focusing all of our
energies into developing regions spe-
cifically, there is also a lot of commu-
nity building that happens irrespective
of location. As a result of our open-
source designs, we plan to have our
community work with us to better our
products and fine-tune them to par-
ticular problems. Our website serves
as somewhat of a hub where people
can communicate, share ideas and
new designs, and find solutions. We’ve
received a lot of great feedback from
our local communities, and have peo-
ple waiting to buy the first version of
the FlyPi from 19 different countries.
That’s really great guys, I wish you
the best in making this all happen.
You mentioned a website, is this up
and running? Could I purchase a FlyPi
on it?
and we’d welcome conversation with
open arms on our forum! It would re-
ally help us to build our community.
As for the FlyPi, we are currently per-
forming our iterations of alpha and
beta testing to improve our product
even more before an official consumer
launch. We want to refine the de-
sign and understand exactly how we
can improve things for our users. Of
course, we have incentives for people
to sign up and become early adopters,
and we would certainly love for some
people from Tübingen to form the
foundation of our community.
And you can check out their pitch at
https://goo.gl/7SFssj.
[1] Maia Chagas A, Prieto-Godino LL, Arren-
berg AB, Baden T. The €100 lab: A 3D-print-
able open-source platform for fluorescence
microscopy, optogenetics, and accurate
temperature control during behaviour of
zebrafish, Drosophila, and Caenorhabditis
elegans. PLoS Biol. 2017;15:e2002702.
Cerebella and Neuroguy live in
Tübingen, Germany and spend
all their days thinking and writing
about science.
Yes, it’s up and running. You can find
us at www.prometheus-science.com,
November 2017 | NEUROMAG |
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