Comstock's magazine 1217 - December 2017 | Page 21

this month's
CONTRIBUTORS
ANDREW J. Andrew doesn’t care about titles. Call
NILSEN him a designer, art director, illustrator,
and adopted the DIYbio Code of Ethics that sets guidelines for
responsible conduct of independent scientists. So, ultimately
biohackers are driven by their creativity, guided by community-
based principals and trying to use their research to advance our
scientific knowledge.
There is growing energy to build a biohackerspace in the
Sacramento region, but the project has yet to reach critical mass.
With the vibrant research community and resources at UC Da-
vis and Sacramento State, it’s surprising that our region lacks
a community lab or biohackerspace. At a recent Greater Sac-
ramento Economic Council forum, business leaders indicated
that health care was a regional strength. If Sacramento wants
to expand into the R&D side of health care, it needs to support
the creative scientists in our backyard and give them a space to
teach, create and invent. There are already startup biotech com-
panies “extending their runway” at the joint H.M. Clause/UC
Davis incubator and the newly formed Inventopia, both in Da-
vis, but a biohackerspace would include the whole community
— not just startups with seed money to rent lab space.
Before they made history with the Apple Computer Com-
pany, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs met in garages at the
Homebrew Computer Club meetings in the 1970s. The biohack-
ers currently meeting in garages and biohackerspaces may be
creating the next big ideas that will create businesses and drive
prosperity in our region.
photographer, white water guide or
motorcycle mechanic — at the end of
the day, Andrew is just a guy who likes
to create. Some of those creations
have been recognized by the Society
of Publications Designers, the Society
of Illustrators, American Illustration,
Creative Quarterly, and more. In this is-
sue, Andrew created a visual concept
and illustrations for the entire maga-
zine. “These pieces, and my work in
general, are inspired by geometry,
technology, complex simplicity, inner
and outer space, and aberrations in
the spacetime continuum.” For more,
visit www.andrewjnilsen.com.
JOAN CUSICK Joan enjoys photographing real peo-
"A Mann and ple in real situations, such as Raley's
His Wine" Wine Buyer Curtis Mann. "My goal
pg. 38
is to get people to open up so I can
capture their story in an honest and
authentic way," she says. "With Cur-
tis, that was easy. We just started
talking about wine and world travel,
and we both relaxed – even in a busy
supermarket." Joan's photography
has been featured in Comstock's,
Edible Sacramento, Outword and
she is also currently document-
ing families impacted by the use of
agricultural chemicals. For more,
visit www.joancusick.com or www.
caughtinthedrift.com.
STEVEN YODER Steven Yoder writes about business,
"Limits to Launch" real estate and criminal justice. His
pg. 42
Brandon Zipp is the director of research and development, and scien-
tific co-founder of Vitality Biopharma, a local pharmaceutical startup.
He grew up in Placer County and received his bachelor’s degree and
Ph.D. in biochemistry at UC Davis. He is an advocate for open-source
science as well as Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math
(STEAM) education, and is interested in growing businesses and fur-
ther developing the biotechnology industry in the Sacramento region.
work appears in Vice, The American
Prospect, Pacific Standard Magazine,
Mic.com and elsewhere. Yoder
says of his feature in this month’s
issue: “How university intellectual
property should be treated is one of
those subterranean issues that gets
almost no attention except from the
people involved — and they mostly
have passionate opinions. It’s a riv-
eting argument that could benefit
from a thorough public airing given
what’s at stake.” Read more of his
work at www.stevenyoder.net. On
Twitter @syodertweets.
December 2017 | comstocksmag.com
21