Reflecting on the history of ChiTownBio.
Hello Chicagoan!
My name is Dr. Andy Scarpelli, and I’m the president and co-founder of ChiTownBio. Things are really starting to move here at ChiTownBio, and even though we’ve said it before, we’re incredibly optimistic that we’re going to be able to open our doors by the end of the year. This is an exciting venture; we hope to be the first permanent community biolab in the Midwest, picking up the baton that has been left by so many spaces before us.
One things that fascinates me is how community biology labs form and how they succeed or fail. We at ChiTownBio really hope to succeed, but no matter what, part of being a good custodian of the faith our community has put in our hands is documenting how we got here and our next moves. If we accomplish our goals, we want to be inspire others to do the same. And in the unlikely and unwanted event that we fail to cross that threshold, we want others to learn from our mistakes so that the next generation will succeed. So today I’m going to try my best to talk about how I became involved in community biology and how I’ve been working to build a space in Chicago. Next week, I’ll try to recap the history of ChiTownBio, and the following week I’ll try to contextualize our lab within the Midwest and within a national context.
I have always been interested in biology, but I was never sure what a career in biology would look like. I worked for 3 years after my undergraduate studies as a laboratory technician at Northwestern’s Fienberg Cardiovascular Research Institute, now the Feinberg Cardiovascular and Renal Research Institute. Working in biology for a few years taught me that you are unable to really advance to exciting work of your own without an advanced degree. This is really frustrating, and I believe this dissatisfaction with the general lack of opportunities within the field is something that would contribute to my later interest in community biology. In 2008, I applied for and was accepted into a PhD program at Northwestern University. While I was given amazing opportunities as a researcher, I really was most excited about teaching and outreach; the greatest joy was getting more people involved in biology and biotechnology, and I really wanted to make sure everyone could experience the joy and wonder of discovery and understanding.
In 2011, I was given the opportunity to attend SB5.0, a conference that was part of a series put on by the Biobricks Foundation, and was able to attend a session on outreach. Dr. Ellen Jorensen, the speaker who’s TED talk is linked above, truly inspired me and completely changed what I believed was possible. Dr. Jorgensen was one of the founders of Genspace, the country’s first community biolab (founded nearly concurrently with Biocurious), and sang the praises of community biology in a way that made the idea of starting a public lab both possible and essential. If trained scientists wanted to engage their communities, the best way was to create spaces for EVERYONE to really dig in and get their hands wet. Dr. Jorgensen’s talk was integral in the creation of ChiTownBio, even if it did precede our organization by more than half a decade.
When I returned to Chicago, my first mission was finding the existing community biology lab or group. And Chicago appeared at the time to have one. From 2008 to 2011, Chicago was home to a collective called Chicago Bioscience. Unfortunately, by the time I reached out, almost all of the community had disappeared. This is a huge problem with community bio in general: a group of enthusiasts build a space or organize a community, but it does not have the momentum to continue, and all records and lessons fade quickly into obscurity. I can find very little about the group or its organizers, and there’s no real way to see what worked and why it failed. This is why I’m writing this series of retrospectives. We need to document our communities so we can move forward learning from the past. In the off chance we don’t succeed with ChiTownBio, I hope this document can help the next generation in creating a DIYBio space in Chicago.
While frustrated with my failed attempts to connect to a community in Chicago, the only conclusion I could draw was that I needed to build a space of my own. I reached out to as many spaces and organizations as I could think of: Makerspaces, science outreach coalitions, and community groups. But what I was proposing had not gelled into a cohesive vision, I was inarticulate about what I wanted to accomplish, and I didn’t understand the ecosystem of science outreach in Chicago. Many people encouraged me, but I did not have the tools to convince anyone to join my cause.
In 2014, I entered my idea for a community biology lab in the RedEye Chicago’s Big Idea Contest. The RedEye is a now defunct, free, daily output from the Chicago Tribune that seemed to disappear during the pandemic, and its Big Idea Contest was a way to generate interest in startups and organizations that may benefit Chicago. My idea came in either second or third within our category, so I have to admit that it didn’t really work, but we gathered a lot of attention and the experience taught me so much more I needed in order to build something successful. At the time, I didn’t have a clear vision, a specific pitch, a community of support, or a way to document our successes and build on them. If you undertake a task like creating a community biolab, you need both a true commitment and the right people at your side.
My quest for a community biology lab went dormant for the next 3 years as I finished my PhD, and it was revived with the help of our community in 2017. The vision changed from being something I wanted to create to something that a community envisioned together. ChiTownBio only seemed possible when the right people coalesced and started working together. And that’s what I want to talk about in my next post next week.
If ChiTownBio is such a community effort, why am cataloging all of my history from over 10 years ago? I promise that it’s not to self aggrandize, which would be silly after listing a series of failures. Instead, it’s to illustrate that this is my third attempt at finding and creating a community biology space. In 2011, I couldn’t find the community, and in 2014, I couldn’t articulate my vision. You need both to be successful. Building on a novel idea is hard, articulating a vision is difficult, and doing it alone is foolish. Through trying and failing, I learned that in a really meaningful way. And it took a few more years, a lot of experience, and some amazing people for us to start to build the community we have now.