DIY Lab Equipment for All

Tekla Labs creates library of open source for creating Do It Yourself laboratory equipments.

Not every laboratory has the luxury of a brand-new centrifuge or thermal cycler, especially labs in poorer parts of the world. Lina Nilsson, director of the Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Berkeley, set out to do something about that by employing a do-it-yourself (DIY) technique. Nilsson, one of MIT’s 35 Innovators Under 35 for 2013, is the founder of Tekla Labs, an innovative website that enables scientists to construct their own high-quality lab equipment using readily available, off-the-shelf items. Tekla Labs is creating a library of open source DIY documents that guide in the construction of quality lab equipment. Michelle Taylor, Editor of Laboratory Equipment, recently spoke with Nilsson about her work and life passions.

MT: What was your inspiration for founding Tekla Labs?

LN: I spent a year traveling throughout Asia and South America and saw labs with great researchers and bright students that were lacking very basic equipment needed to do core experiments or practice bench science. At the same time, I doubt I have ever in my whole research career walked into a lab—in the U.S. or abroad—where there was not some equipment or tool that was DIY, either by necessity or pure engineering geekery. This ranges from simple racks for pipetter holders to state-of-the-art optical tweezer setups for manipulating single molecules. For pretty much any lab equipment or tool you can think of, someone has built at least a basic version DIY, and sometimes very cutting edge iterations as well. For Tekla Labs, I was inspired by the challenge of how to connect this implicit DIY knowledge in so many individual research labs with the broader-felt need for those same tools.

MT: What technology/equipment is most often submitted to Tekla Labs? Is there a particular technology/equipment that is in desperate need of a DIY solution?

LN: Centrifuges. There are a lot of clever centrifuge ideas out there—ranging from salad spinners, egg beaters and kitchen blenders all turned into simple benchtop centrifuges to more complex machines with motors, circuits and other parts assembled from scratch.

As far as DIY needs go, there are many. Even if we know something can and has been built, that does not always mean the instructions have been shared. Ideally, there shouldn’t just be one option for each equipment piece, but rather many different options depending on both performance needs and the researcher’s technical ability to build. More spectrometers, microscopes and other optical tools would be nice.

Tekla Labs should have multiple versions of all the workhorse equipment that I sometimes call the “heat it, cool it, shake it, spin it” equipment, which is used in so much sample preparation. This equipment is easy to build and has relatively low precision needs, yet is so important in many experiments.

MT: What are the global implications of Tekla Labs?

LN: There is a quote I really like: “great ideas are everywhere, but opportunity is not.” Talent is found everywhere on the globe, in both small labs and giant research centers, but ability to act on that talent requires support and tools that are not found everywhere. At the same time, today’s pressing global challenges can best be tackled by a global set of problem solvers.

New scientific insights and engineering innovation generally do not result from sudden flashes of insight, but are the result of persistent iterations of hands-on experimentation in the laboratory. This scientific progress clearly requires laboratory tools—and in many cases, cost and access is an issue. Tekla Labs is one part of a larger movement to create this access to opportunity.

I would also love to see an IKEA for lab equipment—a hybrid between what Tekla Labs is doing and companies delivering fully built pieces of equipment.

MT: With Tekla Labs established, what challenges do you face now?

LN: One important test of a new initiative can be how well it survives a transition to new leadership, or the inclusion of new and more diverse perspectives and ideas. Is your idea bigger than the one person or starting group of people, and can it move beyond its founding team? This is where Tekla Labs is now, with new people bringing their visions and direction. Luckily, this has turned out to be more of an opportunity than a challenge for Tekla Labs. A remaining challenge is still growing from small proof-of-principle to scale. The Tekla Labs team is doing some interesting new international test builds, and is looking for new partners for this.

MT: What would your advice be to a researcher who may be feeling “uninspired” with their work?

LN: Take a break! Creativity and inspiration is easier if you have time set aside to think, without feeling stressed by the next email or the next grant application. You also shouldn’t feel like you have to start something new to have a key part in something inspiring—the entrepreneur Derek Sivers has given a well-known TED talk where he exclaimed that “the first follower turns the lone nut into a leader” and gives new creative ideas lasting momentum. I think there is a lot of truth to that.

MT: What are some of the other programs you are working on?

LN: I am working on creating a different program I call the Social Innovator OnRamp. It will support people, students in particular, who have ideas on how to make the world better through new products, services or initiatives, but are not yet ready to jump in full-time or full-effort. How do you test and grow your very early stage ideas? It’s a “pre-accelerator” program of sorts that incorporates many different types of ideas for social impact, not just technology.