Vulpine Labs

 OUR PHILOSOPHY AND PURPOSE 

We’re Vulpine Labs Inc, a Public Benefit Corporation behind the most important open source project in the history of life on Earth so far. 

https://www.vulpine-labs.com/ is us. 

Vulpine Labs and our work on the GUESS and Geneticiser systems are part of the broader Put Together group, whose mission is simply to improve existence and the experience of it for everyone. 

https://vulpinecloud.vulpinedesigns.com/s/XjcP7aoPN47f2EC 

Our ideas in a nutshell and frequently asked questions.

Our code repository:
https://gitlab.vulpinedesigns.com/explore

ELI5 of what we intend to build:

Change the instructions that your body has for building or repairing itself 

by first putting those instructions into your computer using a machine that 

reads them from tiny samples of your body. 

Then on your computer you can make a model of the body so you can see what 

happens with each change to those instructions and what instructions you 

need to change to make certain changes or repairs happen in the body. 

Then use that model to work out how is best to put these new instructions 

into the body safely and without making it easy to attack 

And make that best way to do it into a real package of those instructions 

that can be put in the body and can then go round the body changing the 

old instructions to new ones, and can double check its changes. 

This instruction writing and packaging can be done with the same machine to 

the one that reads the instructions from tiny samples. 

The new instructions then decide what the body does, even if the body 

is old it could be told to do new things like grow a certain way or avoid having 

a disease or cancer. 

We want to make such a machine that can do both the reading and writing of 

such instructions, and the software for your computer to make the model of 

the body. 

Lots of people who use their computer with this kind of model of the body 

will be able to send new body instruction sets to each other over the internet 

and so make it faster and easier to make new sets of instructions to fix or 

change their body with. 

This gives everyone including you the freedom to decide your form, your 

health and more. 

Vulpine Labs in a more technically savvy voice: 

CURRENT TECH: 
With existing tools: basic gene editing with CRISPR and derived technologies, typically works on only a few cell types at a time. 

OUR WORK: 
Using existing tools, we can develop better tools than CRISPR and better tools than the majority of the lab processes and reagents currently in use. It will take us some years, but we can then develop tools that allow the development of much better gene editing vectors and processes, based on a whole body model generated from the DNA itself of the individual. 

OUR GOALS: 
In years' time, these tools will enable whole body gene editing for any arbitrary set of genes as long as it works in the in-silico model generated from your DNA. This could mean getting rid of genetic disease susceptibility, adapting to harsh environments, transforming ourselves into whatever shape we want (morphological freedom) and more. The sum total of which is freedom of form. 

ABOUT THE WORK WE DO: 

THIS IS A LOOSE GIST, DON'T TAKE IT AS BE ALL END ALL 

The idea of Vulpine Designs is, everyone has (or has access to) a computer which will run a system called the GUESS. 

https://vulpinecloud.vulpinedesigns.com/s/DZioFASjmiTg7Pb 

^ The GUESS in a nutshell. 

Most computers running the (27-module) GUESS will also be connected to a genetic and molecular scanning, manipulation and --bioprinting-- forge device. That's called the Geneticiser. 

To use them: 

Take a sample of your DNA and place it in the Geneticiser. 

On the GUESS, go to The OGRE (Optical Genetic Recognition Engine) module and click to scan. It will use the Geneticiser Driver module to control the Geneticiser and to collect the raw data, and The OGRE module will process it. 

The processed genetic code will then be fed through 20 other modules of software which will determine everything about the body based on its genetic profile as best they can. Environmental and epigenetic factors will be considered too. It will show you a 4D (3D plus time slider) model you can rotate and edit. 

You can then proceed to remove any genetic diseases and susceptibilities for them from your genome, by editing them out in favour of less risky alternatives. The system will warn you about what else gets changed by the cascades of effects that ensue. 

Once you have as healthy a genome as possible, you may proceed to add any changes which are more to do with dysphorias and other non-life-threatening matters. 

When you are satisfied that you have made the body you want to have in the GUESS, you can export its genetic code to a gene-editing vector. If no suitable vector exists for the kind of transformation you want, you can design your own new vector in the DEFS, Vectors Factors and Vectron modules. 

Anonymised versions of the gene editing vectors you designed can be uploaded and shared on the internet through a peer to peer, decentralised system known as Laberation. If you sell them for any money (which will be optional, like on Bandcamp), you will receive commission, as will the hosts of the Laberation nodes the purchases took place on, and the original designers of the vectors if yours was just a mod of a vector you yourself found on Laberation. 

You click Print, or Forge, and the Geneticiser will use the sample you fed it to now construct your vector. It will forge the molecular structures and DNA codes necessary from the parts available to it, minimising waste and minimising cost of use. 

Perhaps a few hundred copies of your vector will have been made, and the Geneticiser will destroy any suboptimal copies to leave you with just the good ones which pass its verification. You then need to get those into your body; perhaps this is via ingestion or injection, it really depends on the vector. 

When the vector is in your body, it will be designed to multiply non-destructively and to go to every cell in the body. It will release its payload in stages, so as not to do anything before all cells are signalling they are ready for that stage. This way, synchronisation can be achieved and all cells can be changed together, or close-as-damnit, to avoid immunorejection and/or eventual dilution of edits. 

An Epigenetic Mothball will be created in every edited cell, containing a backup of the edited parts of the DNA and where they belong. If anything goes wrong, including failure of in-vivo DNA checksums, the mothballs will be unpacked and edited back in. 

The cells will start reading from their new DNA as soon as they have it, because it will program them to. They will start carrying out transformation processes programmed into the DNA, such as growing a tail for example. 

The printed vectors will be uniquely your own and several security measures will ensure they do what you want them to do, and that they cannot spread to anyone else. 

As a result: 

You would download a vaccine. 

You would download a reduced cancer risk. 

You would download adaptations to extreme environments. 

You would download whatever you want to edit into yourself. 

WHAT WE NEED YOUR HELP WITH: 

This is a huge project. So far, we've been struggling to juggle day to day living needs with applying for day jobs (or working at them when we have them) and other mundane matters while still trying to find the time to raise any funds for Vulpine Labs (we have Patreon, Ko-Fi and such but little time to do them justice ourselves) and to develop actual code and designs. 

We are frankly terrible salespeople and our attempts to get investors on board have been almost fruitless (small amounts only that were long since spent on setting up the basics of our servers and such). 

Where we excel is the actual systems design and handling the coding and scientific aspects. 

We need you to recognise our vision of a gene editing future that is open source and available to all, and to be our fiscal sponsors and accounting assistance for the vast majority of money coming into our project (existing small Patreon funds aside). Even if we only develop a module at a time of our code, it will be of great utility to scientists and researchers already. The world needs this work. It needs you. 

FURTHER QUESTIONS? 

Please talk to us! I'm @athamanatha on Discord and Telegram. You can also drop us an email. Be sure to mention the Open Collective application.