About RByers Lab

I am Rick Byers, a software engineer by day and a molecular biology enthusiast by night. I live in Waterloo, Canada.

I am fascinated by the flow of genetic information as viruses and bacteria move through us all. In the future it will be trivial to closely observe this information flow, and that will revolutionalize our approach to individual healthcare and public health. Through my home lab, I am trying to get a glimpse of what living in that future will feel like. Through this blog and my BlueSky social media account, I aim to share what I am learning with you.

Research Interests

• Detecting and quantifying viruses using RT-qPCR
• Viral and bacterial genomics
• Gene expression monitoring
• Homebrew biology equipment
• Personal genomics
• AI-assisted computational biology

My primary lab equipment

• Biomeme Franklin 3-channel qPCR
• Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencer
• MiniPCR mini8 and mini16 PCR machines
• Promega Quantus fluorometer
• MiniPCR gyro plus centrifuge
• MiniPCR BluGel electrophoresis system
• Pluslife molecular point of care test system

My Education

• Lots and lots of trial and error, reading papers and watching YouTube videos
• Volunteer strategic advisor for COVID testing with StaySafeScreen
• Bachelors of Math in CS from the University of Waterloo
• Masters of Science in CS from the University of Washington (with an emphasis in Computational Biology)

Blog source code on GitHub