

Show HN: Biohackers are engineering baker's yeast to produce Real Vegan Cheese - technotony
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/real-vegan-cheese

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webhat
That would be pretty awesome if they could do it. From what I understand of
genetic modification the enzymes which are used to cap or splice the of DNA
strands can be very expensive.

I'm guessing $15k is a fraction of the money they'll need and they are hoping
to pick up a substantial amount more.

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technotony
I don't think there are any salaries here, but the DNA that codes for the
enzymes can be synthesized de novo for way less than $1,000 so this should be
enough money for a prototype. Bio is getting cheaper and easier to do all the
tiem. Getting high levels of expression will take longer however and that will
cost more!

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webhat
I didn't think salaries were in there, not if you look at the number of people
who seem to be on the team. I was actually taking from point of view of the
advise from Indigogo, which is to ask a fraction of the amount, meaning they
would need much more.

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mjuul
Hi. I'm one of the team members. We are all volunteers and all work is being
done at community laboratories with very low fees. Many of our reagents are
donated and all work is being immediately published under free culture
licenses or as public domain. You are both right about the cost. This campaign
will fund us enough to show proof of concept (world's first real vegan
cheese). A larger sum will be needed to get stable high levels of expression
and scale everything up into a financially viable food-safe production
facility.

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webhat
Thanks for reacting. I've shared it to my vegan friends as I think this is a
great idea. I've always thought the current soy curd based vegan cheeses
required a reboot.

Reagent was the word I was groping for. :)

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stephenmac98
Glad to see this go public. I am interning for one of the guys working on this
project (I am not working on this however) and they seem like good guys. Best
of luck in getting funding!

