Biohackers The Politics of Open Science

Biohackers explores fundamental changes occuring in the circulation and ownership of scientific information. Alessandro Delfanti argues that the combination of the ethos of 20th century science, the hacker movement and the free software movement is producing an open science culture which redefines the relationship between researchers, scientific institutions and commercial companies. Biohackers looks at the emergence of the citizen biology community 'DIYbio', the shift to open access by the American biologist Craig Venter and the rebellion of the Italian virologist Ilaria Capua against WHO data sharing policies. Delfanti argues that these biologists and many others are involved in a transformation of both life sciences and information systems, using open access tools and claiming independence from both academic and corporate institutions.

Alessandro Delfanti teaches New Media at the University of Milan, Italy and is an editor of the open access Journal of Science Communication.

1. Introduction: Cracking Codes, Remixing Cultures2. Forbidden, Public, Enclosed, Free. A History of Open Science and its Political Economy3. Hackers, Rebels and Profiteers: Scientists' Cultures and Digital Capitalism4. What Dr. Venter did on his Holidays: Sailing and Sequencing the Seas of Capitalism5. Just Another Rebel Scientist: Ilaria Capua and the Restoration of the Ethic of Science6. We are the Biohackers: DIYbio and the Rise of Garage Biology7. Conclusion: How to Hack a Genome