Josiah Zayner

Early life and career

Zayner graduated from the University of Chicago with a Ph.D. in biophysics in 2013. He then spent two years as a researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center, where he worked on Martian colony habitat design. While at the agency, Zayner also analyzed speech patterns in online chat, Twitter, and books, and found that language on Twitter and online chat is closer to how people talk than to how they write. Zayner found NASA's scientific work less innovative than he expected, and upon leaving in January 2016, he launched a crowdfunding campaign to provide CRISPR kits to let the general public experiment with editing bacterial DNA. He also continued his grad school business, The ODIN, which sells kits to let the general public experiment at home. As of May 2016, The ODIN had four employees and operates out of Zayner's garage.

He refers to himself as a biohacker and believes in the importance in letting the general public participate in scientific experimentation, rather than leaving it segregated to labs. Zayner found the biohacking community exclusive and hierarchical, particularly in the types of people who decide what is "safe". He hopes that his projects can let even more people experiment in their homes. Other scientists responded that biohacking is inherently privileged, as it requires leisure time and money, and that deviance from the safety rules of concern would lead to even harsher regulations for all. Zayner's public CRISPR kit campaign coincided with wider scrutiny over genetic modification. Zayner maintained that these fears were based on misunderstandings of the product, as genetic experiments on yeast and bacteria cannot produce a viral epidemic. In April 2015, Zayner ran a hoax on Craigslist to raise awareness about the future potential of forgery in forensics genetics testing.

In February 2016, Zayner performed a full body microbiome transplant on himself, including a fecal transplant, to see if he could cure himself from gastro intenstinal and other health issues. The microbiome from the donors feces successfully transplanted in Zayner's gut according to DNA sequencing done on samples.

In the arts, Zayner created a musical instrument, the Chromochord, which stimulates light-, oxygen-, and voltage-sensing proteins and translates their reactions into music. In 2014, he worked with the new media artist Lynn Hershman Leeson to create an art installation about genetic engineering, which included a booth designed by Zayner that attempts reverse engineer a person's DNA from their picture. The installation was shown at ZKM and Deichtorhallen.