Michael Laufer
DIY pharmaceutical inventor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michael Swan Laufer (sometimes styled as Mixæl Laufer[1]) is the de facto leader of the open-source anarchist biohacking network, Four Thieves Vinegar Collective.[2][3][4] Laufer is notable for creating the EpiPencil, an open source alternative to the Epipen.[2][5]
Open source medicine,
De facto leader of Four Thieves Vinegar Collective
Michael Laufer | |
|---|---|
| Other names | Mixæl Laufer |
| Known for | Biohacking, Open source medicine, De facto leader of Four Thieves Vinegar Collective |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Graduate Center, CUNY |
Education
Laufer has a Ph.D. in mathematics and physics from the CUNY Graduate Centre.[6]
Career
Laufer was the director of mathematics at Silicon Valley's Menlo College,[3] and a part time teacher of mathematics at San Quentin State Prison, California.[2] Laufer is also a Senior Research Fellow at the UNESCO Crossings Institute.[7]
In 2008 Laufer went to El Salvador where he saw hospitals that had run out of birth control medicine, he founded the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective shortly afterwards.[3]
Laufer publicly shared videos in 2016 that illustrated how to manufacture generic version of the Epi-Pen epinephrine auto-injector from components readily available to the public.[8][9]
Laufer is working on a DIY controlled lab reactor that he calls the Apothecary MicroLab that will allow people to manufacture their own pharmaceuticals at home.[2] The first version is able to manufacture pyrimethamine, the same drug that in 2016 increased in price in USA from $13 to $750 in 2019.[8][10][11] Laufer's work is both about access to medicine and about the right to personal autonomy and information, seeking to undo a trend that has put healthcare decision-making in the control of financially motivated private actors.[3] Laufer believes that providing lifesaving medication to those in need justifies violation of intellectual property rights.[12] He wants to find simple ways to produce emergency contraceptives and common medications for HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C.[8]
In 2019 Laufer co-created a mesh-network sub-dermal implant that costs less than US$50, allowing humans to internally carry wireless routers.[13] Soon after, he had one implanted in himself.[13]