Open Insulin Foundation

We’re a team of biohackers with a variety of backgrounds, and skills, and relationships to insulin and diabetes from many cities and countries around the world, including Oakland, California; Baltimore, Maryland; and Paris, France. We’re working to develop the first practical, small-scale, community-centered model for insulin production to make insulin accessible to all. We are working towards the goal of communities in need having local sources of safe, affordable, high-quality insulin, and where diabetics and their communities can own and govern the organizations that produce the medicine they depend on to survive.

We can use help with any area of our operations, but the following areas are high priority:

• Lab work on microbe engineering (the core of our work)
• Lab automation for high throughput transformation and screening
• Mechanical and electrical / control engineering (embedded systems) for open hardware development
• Communications and social media
• Fundraising and grant writing
• Project management
• Cooperative business development

If you have an interest in any of these areas, we

Volunteering for lab work is mainly through our participating labs, which are currently located in Oakland, Baltimore, and Paris.

Contact us if you are interested in volunteering.

One of the most important ways to advance our work is to open a local lab or establish a partnership with an organization, such as a community or university lab, that can support our research. This is no small task, but don’t hesitate to contact us if you are interested in this.

We are especially in need of high throughput strain optimization services at present.

Collaboration with cooperative business associations interested in developing cooperative models for insulin production with us is also of particular interest.

Please note that we are still working primarily on technology research and development and that it will be some time before we will be able to proceed to manufacturing efforts based on that technology.

Your donation will help us get closer to our goal. With a healthy financial situation, we can pay for lab supplies, acquire lab equipment, recruit scientists, and pay for consultation fees for regulation and manufacturing experts.