Michael Laufer
Michael Laufer Ph.D is the de facto leader the anarchist open-source biohacking network, the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective.[1][2][3] Laufer is notable for creating the EpiPencil, a low open source alternative to the Epipen.[1][4]
Education
Laufer has an academic background in nuclear physics,[2] and a Doctor of Philosophy in mathematics[5] from the Graduate Center, CUNY Graduate Centre, and can read 18 languages.[1]
Career
Laufer is the director of mathematics at Silicon Valley's Menlo College[2] and a part time teacher of mathematics at San Quentin State Prison, California.[1]
Laufer is also a Senior Research Fellow at the UNESCO Crossings Institute.[6]
In 2008 Laufer went to El Salvador where he saw hospitals that had run out of birth control medicine and founded the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective shortly afterwards.[2]
On 19 September 2016, Laufer publicly shared videos that illustrated how to manufacture generic version of the Epi-pen epinephrine auto-injector from components readily available to the public.[7][8]
Laufer is working on a Do it yourself pharmaceutical chemical reactor that he calls the Apothecary MicroLab that will allow people to manufacture their own pharmaceuticals at home.[1] The first version is able to manufacture pyrimethamine, the same drug that in 2016 increased in price in USA from $13 to $750 in 2019.[7][5][9] He presented at the In 2016 Hackers on Planet Earth|Hackers On Planet Earth conference.[10] He is now working to make it possible to manufacture the medications needed to treat HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, emergency contraception and abortion medication.[7][10]
In 2019 Laufer co-created a Mesh networking|mesh-network Subdermal implant|sub-dermal implant that costs less than US$50, allowing humans to internally carry WiFi routers. Soon after, he had one implanted in himself.[11]
Critical reception
Speaking of Laufer's work in 2017, Dr. Vinay Prasad of Oregon Health and Science University said that "“Desperate times call for desperate measures" and described Laufer as a "symptom of the disease, and the disease is drug pricing”[1]
Laufer's work was described as both "intuitive" and "radical" by Daniel Oberhaus, Vice Media|Vice Media's Tech Editor in 2018[2] and was described as "irresponsible" by ethics professor Jennifer Miller at New York University.[3]
Writing in the Royal Australian Chemical Institute|Royal Australian Chemical Institute's quarterly magazine in 2020, Peter G. Lehman Chartered Chemist|CChem, a Fellow of the Institute said that Laufer:
"is said to be convinced that providing lifesaving medication to any who need it justifies violating intellectual property rights of the pharmaceutical companies that own the IP."[12]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Piller,STAT, Charles. "An Anarchist Is Teaching Patients to Make Their Own Medications". Scientific American. Retrieved 2021-12-03.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 "Meet the Anarchists Making Their Own Medicine". www.vice.com. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Was the EpiPen Hack Ethical?". KQED. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
- ↑ By (2016-09-22). "Should You Build Your Own EpiPen?". Popular Science. Retrieved 2021-12-03.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Larson, Selena (2016-09-24). "Outrageous EpiPen prices lead some people to make their own". CNNMoney. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
- ↑ "People | University of Oregon-UNESCO Crossings Institute". unesco.uoregon.edu. Retrieved 2021-12-03.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 "Hackers Offer a DIY Alternative to the $600 EpiPen". IEEE Spectrum. 2016-09-19. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
- ↑ Livni, Ephrat. "Hackers created a $30 DIY version of the EpiPen". Quartz. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
- ↑ Leonard, Kimberly (23 Sep 2016). "EpiPen Alternative? Meet the $30, DIY EpiPencil". US News.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 "Prescription Drug Recipe on the Internet". Healthline. 2017-11-02. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
- ↑ Oberhaus, Daniel. "This DIY Implant Lets You Stream Movies From Inside Your Leg". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2021-12-01.
- ↑ Lehman, Peter G (Dec 2020). "Beyond chemistry: DIY medicine" (PDF). Chemistry in Australia. December 2020 - February 2021: 35 – via Royal Australian Chemical Institute.
External links
This article "Michael Laufer" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles taken from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be accessed on Wikipedia's Draft Namespace.