Start a Lab in My Garage - Is it Legal? - (Apr/13/2016 )
Hey everyone. What are the legalities of starting a molecular biology lab in my garage? I graduated with my BS in molecular biology, so I'm already familiar with how to safely and correctly use all lab equipment. I recently fell into a lot of money, and my plan was to spend about $100,000 or so on lab equipment for my garage. The question is: is this legal? Could someone show me (with proof) as to whether it is or isn't? Thanks!
the laws depend on where you live (country, state, municipality).
it is most likely not legal due to fire codes. if you can bring your garage up to code for laboratories which use flammables then you probably can.
but you may be spending more than $100k for that and equipment.
have you looked into renting lab space in an incubator or university?
mdfenko on Thu Apr 14 14:54:23 2016 said:
the laws depend on where you live (country, state, municipality).
it is most likely not legal due to fire codes. if you can bring your garage up to code for laboratories which use flammables then you probably can.
but you may be spending more than $100k for that and equipment.
have you looked into renting lab space in an incubator or university?
Hey, thanks for the reply.
I did think about renting out commercial space, but I wanted to have something that I could access without having to travel.
I will look more into fire codes.
As far as doing research, does the government care if I do things like purify proteins, sequence genes, etc.? As long as I'm not dealing with potentially-deadly bacteria or viruses, will they care what I doing? Can I bioprint tissue for example?
So far the internet hasn't been much help :/
i'm not sure but, you may have to have the space inspected by some agency.
if you can't find the rules and regulations then it's safer for you to not set up in your garage (some agency may suspect you of performing illegal work, ie meth lab, making wmds).
also, some suppliers won't ship to apparently private addresses (they want to see the name of your company, agency, etc).
Probably the guys doing some "biohacking" may know about it. I think there is a thread somewhere in the forum with a collection of links. In the meantime you can check with these people:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/diybio
I don't know if it's legal but know that it's awsome. Go ahed Dekster!