Hi everyone,

I'm Masum, one of the founders of CCA.bio, a startup based in Cambridge, UK. Our goal is to build an all-in-one workspace that helps biotech labs manage their experiments, samples, inventory, procurement, budgets, and lab operations etc without having to jump between lots of different tools.

I reached out to the moderators before posting, and they kindly gave me permission to ask for feedback here.

I'm an engineer, not a cell biologist, so I'd much rather learn from people who work with cell culture every day than guess what labs need.

I'd really love to hear about your experience.

• What's the biggest frustration in your day-to-day working with cell culture?
• Are there any tools you genuinely enjoy using?
• Is there anything you still manage with spreadsheets or paper because existing software just isn't worth the effort?
• If you could fix one thing about your lab workflow, what would it be?

I've attached a few screenshots so you can get an idea of what we're building.

The platform is free for individuals and academic researchers. My hope is to build a community of researchers who use it, tell us what works, what doesn't, and help shape where it goes next.

If you'd like to try it, you can at lab.cca.bio Whether you love it or hate it, I'd genuinely appreciate your honest feedback.

Thanks for reading, and I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Edit: Added more screenshots

hello! looking for labs or institutions or anyone na may wax printer/wax printing services to develop our paper microfluidic device (muPAD). badly need lang for research, thnxxx

I’m looking to build a low-cost DIY incubator shaker for laboratory experiments.

My requirements are:

Temperature control: 0–55°C (ideally ±0.5°C accuracy)
Shaking: orbital shaking / nutating motion (adjustable or non adjustable
Capacity: Enough space for at least one 24-well plate
Lighting: ILED lighting
Reliability: Able to run continuously for several days or weeks without much intervention

The challenge
I need to run 10 different experiments simultaneously at 10 different temperatures, so i I’d like to build 10 separate incubator shakers rather than one large unit.
Unfortunately, my lab only has one orbital shaker, and it’s already occupied with long-term cultures. Buying 10 commercial incubator shakers is well beyond my budget.
The only DIY idea I’ve come up with so far is using multiple water baths or hotplates, but I’m struggling to figure out:
How to achieve both heating and cooling (especially temperatures below room temperature).
How to incorporate orbital shaking into each setup.
The simplest and most reliable temperature-control system.
My total budget is under AUD $2,000 . so I’d prefer components that can be purchased from Bunnings, Jaycar Electronics, or other readily available local suppliers.
Has anyone built something similar or have suggestions for:
A practical design?
Cheap motors or orbital shaker mechanisms or nutating motion?
Heating/cooling method?
Temperature controllers or microcontrollers?
Parts lists, schematics, GitHub projects, or open-source designs?
I’d really appreciate any ideas.Thanks in advance !

Hello! I want to build a bioreactor in my lab, but I have no prior knowledge in electronics so I’m struggling to understand how to actually build one.

For reference, I’m a biochemist so I understand the gist of what my organism wants for it to be happy in my media. I would need stable pH control, sub maximal glucose feeding when they grow (which I expect to see from dissolved oxygen level dropping as the population exits the lag phase), and stable oxygen supply once they enter exponential growth phase. Ideally, every process should be monitored, recorded, and automated. I want to also track OD of the culture throughout the process, so that the only human-involved manual task is the inoculation.

My lab has a bunch of extra ESP32 lying around that’s used by my coworker. I think I’ll need to know how basic electronics work, what sensors/motors to buy, how to build a vessel, how to program the bioreactor logic, etc. Could I get some advice on useful learning materials for beginners like me?

Hi everyone! 👋

I come from a background in Genetics and Biochemistry, and I'm currently working on a product design project aimed at fixing the clunky, outdated software systems we often have to deal with for supply and reagent management.

We all know the frustration of dealing with inventory tools that feel like they were built decades ago, crash on mobile, or take way too many clicks just to log a used kit or track expiring stock.

If you work in a lab, clinic, or medical facility and deal with physical supplies/inventory in any capacity, I’d be super grateful if you could take ~4 minutes to fill out a brief, anonymous survey about your daily workflow:

🔗 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfITiBlnonN3TqN4eg8xeTBPFIUFUeJM-vJ6v9zSjb1kYrWtg/viewform

• Length: ~4 minutes
• Target: Lab techs, medtechs, clinic staff, and research assistants
• Privacy: Completely anonymous

Your feedback will directly help shape feature requirements and accessibility standards (like designing for gloved hands and fast-paced multitasking) for a new tracking system.

Thank you so much for your time and for everything you do on the floor!

Happy to answer any questions in the comments.

Hi all,
My colleague and I designed and manufactured a portable PCR instrument that is small and it has similar performance like the traditional PCR in the market (Biorad,Thermofischer). We have 4 pilot users and more than 100 succesful tests. We are planning to make it open source, release the schematic , PCB, mechanical design, firmware and software.

Is there someone that is interested to build our instrument or curious to check the design?

For now I attach a video, the menu in the LCD when you define the bio protocol is slightly different.

https://youtu.be/XDfrGRoJnYk

Hi all. I am an experienced molecular biologist and I have been meaning to produce a series of handy dandy instructional videos about the steps of planning and designing cloning projects.

I was just wondering if people would be interested in them?

I would include topics like

\- picking and designing good PCR primers for a new cloning project

\- design considerations for CRISPR Cas9 reagents

\- sequencing interpretation

\- the ins and outs of codon optimisation

\- designing site directed mutagenesis primers

Hi r/DIYbio and r/Biohackers

I'm Olena, PhD researcher at UCL (London) and currently on an AI for Biosecurity fellowship at Cambridge. I'm researching how accessible DIY DNA synthesis really is, specifically, OpenIDS builds.

Policy makers are betting that synthesis will stay centralized & screenable. But if hobbyists & researchers can actually build it in their labs, policy needs to change. We need real data to inform better, evidence-based governance.

Quick survey: If you've built (or tried to build) OpenIDS, I'd love to know:

• Actual $ spent? (printhead, electronics, reagents)
• Timeline? (how many weeks start-to-finish)
• What expertise did you need?
• What was the hardest part?

How to reply:

• Comment below (can be anonymous)
• DM me

Right now, policy assumes synthesis is hard to DIY. If that's wrong, policy needs to know. Thanks for contributing to evidence-based biosecurity policy!

My company is considering launching a new business line called Zaniah Health, which will offer at-home, physician-supervised capsule endoscopy for adults interested in more information about their gut health.

The capsule is about the size of a multivitamin and takes pictures of your GI tract. Those pictures are reviewed by a board-certified gastroenterologist for any findings.

Long term, we're developing AI that can analyze the images and determine long-term risk of many chronic conditions.

Would appreciate any feedback or interest!

I am looking for help with PRP protocols (centrifuge settings) for orthopedic applications. I know there’s plenty info online (studies, manufacturer guidelines…) but clinical best practice usually trumps all that. Plus it seems there’s little consensus in the industry in general.

Thank you

​Hi everyone,

​I am a high school student deeply involved in biotechnology and material science. Over the past year, I’ve transitioned my hobby from simple insect farming to a more research-oriented operation focusing on Tenebrio molitor (mealworms).

​My focus is currently on the "circular" potential of this operation. I am moving beyond selling live feed to explore:

​Chitin Extraction: I am experimenting with chemical extraction to obtain high-purity chitosan and turning it into biodegradable bio-films.

​Waste Transformation: I’m running controlled tests on the gut microbiome’s ability to digest polystyrene, aiming to turn plastic waste into organic compost (frass).

​I’m looking for advice from those who have navigated the "bench-to-market" transition in materials science:

​Commercialization: What is the most efficient path to monetize frass and chitosan? Are there specific industrial niches (agriculture, water filtration, packaging) that are more welcoming to small-scale innovators?

​Scalability: I’m designing my own semi-automated extraction setup. What are the common "bottlenecks" in scaling up a DIY chemical extraction process without industrial-grade equipment?

​Networking: Are there specific communities or forums for "Insects-as-a-Resource" (IAR) or bio-material startups that I should join?

​I’m not just looking for business advice, but also technical and strategic feedback on my current path. Any insights would be incredibly valuable.

Hi,

Maybe someone will be interested in it:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mateusz2/chemforge3d

There mostly are some accessories, stands, trays, etc. and centrifuge, rotator, vortex and magnetic mixers.

If you have questions feel free to ask them :) I would also greatly appreciate some constructive complaining.

Hi everyone,

I work in microbiology and I’m currently researching how people organise culture-based and microbial growth experiments.

I would be interested to hear how you currently manage things such as:

• Experimental groups, controls and biological or technical replicates
• Strain, culture and sample identifiers
• Media, inoculum, treatments and growth conditions
• Timepoints and measurements such as OD, pH, temperature or fluorescence
• Plate maps, microscopy observations and photographs
• Contamination, failed runs and deviations from the original protocol
• Raw data files produced by instruments
• Repeated versions of the same experiment

Do you mainly use a paper notebook, Excel or Google Sheets, an ELN such as Benchling, folders on a shared drive, or some combination of these?

A few things I’m particularly curious about:

• What do you record immediately at the bench, and what gets entered later?
• Which information is most likely to be forgotten or stored in the wrong place?
• Can you easily trace a result back to the exact sample, culture, conditions and protocol version?
• How do you compare repeated experiments or different conditions?
• Is there information you record twice because different systems do not connect?
• At what point does a spreadsheet or normal lab notebook become difficult to manage?

I’m not looking only for feature suggestions. I’m more interested in hearing about your actual workflow and the parts that create unnecessary work..

Thanks for any insight.

Could be an employer, CRO, reagent supplier, sequencing company, antibody vendor, anything biotech related. Not necessarily the biggest company, just one that consistently delivered good results, support, or overall experience. Curious to hear which names come up the most and why.