Donate $10
Pay for one SDS PAGE experiment used routinely in a biology lab to detect proteins.
Donate $10
We want to make insulin available to any person who needs it. Your donation helps us pay for lab supplies, acquire lab equipment, recruit scientists, and pay for consultation fees for regulation and manufacturing experts. And, when you fund Open Insulin, you are powering a non-profit, open-source, community-built organization that is actively working toward providing a pharmaco industry by the people, for the people. In short, your donation will help make accessible insulin a reality.
Pay for one SDS PAGE experiment used routinely in a biology lab to detect proteins.
Pays for Mass Spectrometry analysis to identify one protein sample.
Covers the cost for our scientists to grow batches of yeast used to express proteins. One batch will take a week and necessitate feeding the yeast every day.
Covers the costs for our scientists to run protein purification experiments. One purification experiment takes a few hours. This type of lab experiment is vital to get a sample for the characterization of the insulin.
Covers the cost for a grant writer to submit a grant proposal. In 2020, the foundation submitted two grant proposals and got one approved (Open Foundation). The second one is still pending.
You can contribute by rallying people to our cause. In less than 2 minutes, you can set up a crowdfunding campaign and start collecting funds for the project. You can use the goals described above or create your own!
What exactly is OI, and what are their goals as an organization?
Open Insulin is a nonprofit project to steward technology and build a community around the goal of producing insulin at a small scale in a distributed network of local organizations owned and controlled by the people using the insulin and the workers. We incorporated in June of 2020 but the project has existed since 2015 as part of Counter Culture Labs (Oakland, CA) and collaborators from other community labs around the country and the world.
Where is my money going?
We mainly spend our donation funds on lab facilities, supplies & equipment, and payments to contractors & other 3rd party service providers in order to support our work. We currently have two part-time contractors paid to work on the project (Yann: lead scientist, and Anthony: operations and fundraising lead). We get an average of $7k in individual donations per year, and in April of 2020, we received a grant of $24k.
What has the organization accomplished with their funds so far?
Our team has been working in and out of the lab since our initial fundraiser in December 2015. We will share the results regularly for each milestone: getting pure insulin with a lab set up, reaching a yield compatible with production, achieving the protocol for small scale production, and getting insulin that is safe and suitable for medical use. After that, we will focus on the legal and regulatory questions around how to provide medicine that is safe and economical in a distributed network of production.
How do I start my own campaign for Open Insulin?
What should I highlight when describing my fundraiser?
Begin by giving a small overview of OI and what we stand for, making sure that people know we are non-profit, open-source, and community-oriented. More importantly, emphasize why Open Insulin is valuable to YOU! Feel free to take your spin on the campaign, perhaps highlighting a personal connection you may have with the current insulin crisis or affordable healthcare in general. See a more general template here.
How do I let my family and friends know about my campaign for Open Insulin?
Share away! Social media is a great way to reach a lot of different people, and personal emails can be a great way to communicate with the closest people in your life.
How can I get more involved with OI?
If you’re interested in getting more involved, contact us at [email protected]! Also, feel free to attend our virtual weekly meetings at 6 pm on Wednesdays (contact us for the link). We are always looking for more volunteers and members to join our OI community! We host an info session every last Sunday of the month. Register here.