This article examines some of the potentially problematic issues and asks the following questions:

what happens if the client does not like the research findings?
what ethical issues are raised by the client becoming the subject of the research?
if the client objects to the findings, what are the implications for publication?

We have personal computing, why not personal biotech? That's the question biologist Ellen Jorgensen and her colleagues asked themselves before opening Genspace, a nonprofit DIYbio lab in Brooklyn devoted to citizen science, where amateurs can go and tinker with biotechnology. Far from being a sinister Frankenstein's lab (as some imagined it), Genspace offers a long list of fun, creative and practical uses for DIYbio.