Patton pays $10 a month for a membership to SoundBio Lab , Seattle’s only community biotechnology laboratory. The 2-year-old nonprofit lab caters to anyone who wants to experiment with molecular biology, microbiology and other life sciences that help us understand and alter genetic codes. Equipped with a menagerie of donated tools — used PCR machines, centrifuges, autoclaves and much more — and a mostly volunteer staff, SoundBio gives people of all ages and experience levels opportunities to learn and practice the essentials of a field that seems out of reach to many people, both intellectually and financially.

Co-founder Zach Mueller believes biotechnology is the next era-defining industry. An Amazon data scientist by day, he thinks making these expensive tools available to a broader diversity of potential scientists who might not otherwise learn to use them could help biotech evolve in a more democratic and equitable direction than corporate-dominated tech. Having seen the tech industry boom under the direction of white men like himself, he’s concerned about seeing the same happen in biotech, where the stakes by definition are personal by definition.

“I want to make sure steps are taken in its early days to involve a diverse range of people, because genetics vary based on your background,” he says. “I want to make sure those things are worked on [by diverse people], so we’re not just focused on the problems experienced by people who are already doing just fine in their lives.

“Having worked in the tech industry, where having a computer gave me [the option] to disrupt anything I want through software, I think having access to biotech is the next place where that same kind of disruption can happen,” says Mueller.

In the age of mind-bending gene editing tools like CRISPR, Mueller and his staff also believe providing this hands-on access to biotechnology might make an oft-maligned science less scary.

“Biotech isn’t all crazy scientists creating some mutant cell that can infect the world — most bacteria suck at living outside,” Goto says. “I chose this job over some higher-paying jobs, to be quite honest, because I just think it's so exciting to teach people how to do this. It's not the whole ‘playing god’ thing — it's the idea of humanizing science and stimulating people’s scientific curiosity. I think that can change public opinion and increase the amount of innovation that happens.”

Goto acknowledges that biotechnology as a whole and gene editing in particular can be especially divisive.

“Biotech involves us directly —our bodies — and so it's a harder hurdle for some people to accept what it is,” Goto says. “I know a lot of people who are religious and they have some moral issues with it and I can respect that. But I don’t think they understand how much it can save lives. And scientists suck at communicating.”

The initial inspiration for SoundBio happened in 2014, after Mueller listened to a podcast discussing the annual International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGem) contest, a science fair where 6,000 students attempt to solve real-world problems with synthetic biology. After checking out the contest in Boston and meeting people involved in community biohacking, he joined the now-defunct HiveBio lab in Seattle, where other members introduced him to “ wet lab ” techniques necessary for genetic experiments.

“I started having it in my mind that I wanted to switch into a biotech career,” Mueller says. “Through the experience of being able to use the lab space at HiveBio, I thought it’d be valuable to provide that opportunity to encourage other people to go into this industry. I wanted it for myself, but also for rest of the community.”

After a brief hiatus hosting lab benches and microscopes in his garage, Mueller and new biohacking friends Regina Wu and Michal Galdzicki secured donated equipment. Mueller found the current SoundBio space on Craiglist in fall 2016.