[math_guy]

austinso, I agree with you. Universities have a different take on the matter than an individual lab PI might. Here are some common rules when employed by a University:
-Disclose inventions. The university asks you to disclose all innovations, even if you don't think they have commercial value, so the technology transfer office can make that determination. This can protect you from ruining their chance of patenting an idea.
-Disclose outside activities. The university has rules about what you are allowed to do outside of your contract as a post-doc or graduate student. NIH has rules, either directly from funding a postdoctoral fellowship or from funding the lab that pays you, about outside activities. Often to have outside activities, you need to petition at the vice provost for academic affairs level.
-Disclose conflict of interest. By forming a company, there is the possibility that your academic research is tainted by your activities in the company. The university wants, and is mandated to do so, to manage this conflict by having you disclose to the public your conflict and how you are allowing oversight to prevent your academic endeavors from being corrupted.

These are taken very seriously by universities. Even worse, by "borrowing" supercomputer time (you mention millions of dollars of time for calculating primer design... sounds unlikely!) and using university lab equipment to support your commercial interests, you have taken taxpayer subsidized equipment for your company's gain. This could get very ugly if you aren't careful!

I get what you are saying. Don't worry though. We're all fine. Most of us are outside of school now and most of us are employed full-time by companies or work full-time on this outside of anything related to school.

Our current "lab" is 3 companies that we use to outsource most lab work. Basically because we are not the best lab techs (i caught my lab on fire twice in one year...). These 3 companies are using our solution internally and they are not related to any university. We basically trade our solution for the work they do for us right now. And we still sequence on campus sometimes but have to pay for it.

I mentioned the borrowing because we started on campus 4 years ago and they did help us. But we are so far along now and have changed our entire approach in the last 4 years that what was started there is not even close to what we are doing now. I do appreciate your advice, though.

And, as I mentioned in an earlier post: I would love it if UC could make money because they need it. But I would be irritated if they made money by selling a patent or patent request to a company which then used it to make money and slow down the pace of research.

We are not a company. And we never took any taxpayer-funded anything for any gain. We have no company. We have no business plan. I just figured that this was the best use of my free time and unlikely money I had gained from bitcoins. Plus, don't forget, we plan to give it away for free if it even works.

Trust me: we did use millions in super-computing time. I am not a genius when it comes to bio or genetics or even math (sadly I just like math...I am not naturally good at it). But I am good at figuring out ways to do things very cheaply. I traded everything I could over the last 40 months for as much free computing resources as I possibly could. And I convinced several groups to let us borrow some as well. According to my calculations, we have used about $2million in computing resources. Now...if I have to be honest then I will admit that much of it was a waste because of the plethora of bad ideas we have had. But still...we used it. I just didn't pay millions out of my pocket. And I never took it from anyone unethically. Using smart people at a university to help you ferret out stupid experiments that you consider running should not be something which legally keeps us from making this available (again...if it even works).

[kmcarr]

We are not a company. ... We have no company.

Really? Then what exactly is Auspex Genomics, Inc.?

We have no business plan.

Perhaps not the best admission to make when you are asking people to invest in you.

[math_guy]

Really? Then what exactly is Auspex Genomics, Inc.?
Perhaps not the best admission to make when you are asking people to invest in you.

I don't know what Auspex Genomics, Inc. is. But I do know that you have to create some kind of word or combo of words (usually) when you need to make a website. So we used Auspex cuz it sort of means a person who looks into the future.

We are not a company. If you're interested you can try to search and see if there really is an Auspex Genomics, Inc. We made up that web-address because there was no company with that name. So that people could have a website to go to (also..yes...i know the website sucks...we built it ourselves, obviously ).

And not having a business plan is pretty typical of crowdsourcing sites. I would guess that the VAST majority of people on crowsourcing sites are just looking for help to complete a project. In fact, most crowdsourcing sites typically call them projects and many don't accept companies trying to start a business.

Also, we are not asking people to invest in us. We are asking people to crowdfund a cheaper genetic/cancer test until our project runs out of master mix.

Wow...some people seem a little irritated with us. And a few people sent me impolite private messages. If I am doing anything which seems rude then i really do apologize. I am not trying to be. If anyone thinks that I am using inappropriate money or taking advantage of taxpayers or stealing money and ideas from a university..or if anyone thinks I am doing anything unethical then....I guess....just...I don't know...I am not.

If you're in southern california then come by and meet with us. In my opinion, everyone in our group is pretty cool.

Also, we lose about $10 on each sample we would run for the crowdsourcing site, because we forgot to include shipping in our price but we didn't want to charge people later for shipping. So maybe I actually should start a business so I could write off the loss I would make on that

[kmcarr]

I don't know what Auspex Genomics, Inc. is.

It is the name at the bottom of the page of this website bearing the same name and logo as your RocketHub video. A website which lists you, Dr. Blake, as one of the "People" behind Auspex Genomics. How exactly can you not know what Auspex Genomics, Inc. is?

We are not a company. If you're interested you can try to search and see if there really is an Auspex Genomics, Inc.

Well, a search turns up your websites. You say you are not a company; does that mean there are no letters of incorporation filed anywhere? If not, why the "Inc." attached to the name?

Wow...some people seem a little irritated with us.

And at what point do you finally ask yourself, "Gee, could it be me?". Perhaps they are getting irritated with what appears to me to be a whole lot of dissembling going on.

[math_guy]

I really, whether anyone believes me or not, do not know what Auspex Genomics, Inc. is because it doesn't exist (as far as I know at least). That is how I do not know what it is. I know what Auspex Genomics the project is. Also, I had a buddy of mine helped me design the "artwork" on that site and the front page as well as a bunch of other stuff on it so maybe he just put that in because he doesn't know (yes...I know i should have seen it but it was tiny and in that corner and sometimes I am not very detailed). I am guessing he just did it cuz he thought that was right. I'll try to remember to take it off in the next few days. Either way, we're not incorporated or a company called Auspex Genomics, Inc. Auspex Genomics was just what we came up with so we could have a website and a name for our project/team.

Sadly I had to look up what "dissembling" meant (even though I did ok on my SAT verbal). I am just answering questions because people asked them. I am not dissembling. I am just doing my best to answer a question. Dang. This is a tough forum. I didn't do anything to anyone and I am trying to give away something that I worked on for almost 4 years and I answered questions and then I get people irritated with me.

I never even implied that anyone on this forum should give us money. In fact, I recommended that no one here should even waste their time with what we're doing. I always check the internet for anything related to us, because I am human, so I found a question on this forum and I answered it. Then other people posted so I responded or tried to answer what they said or asked.

Anyhow, I will still answer questions here if I happen to see that someone asked something but I will also do my best not to come off in any irritating way.

Also, just to be clear (not trying to be irritating, just trying to make sure people understand):

1) don't send us money to rockethub...we are interested in seeing how many non-sequencing people out there are interested in something like this; also, we lose money on each run (again..."losing money" does not imply a business loss...it is just that we lose $10 on each run..plus the time it takes to get it all set up and confirmed and then re-confirmed)
2) we have not solved what we are hoping to solve; we are only headed in what we feel may be a promising direction
3) if certain things in the sequencing protocol change then we can't do anything and we're stuck with the remaining stock of old stuff and old tech
4) this was a "garage" project
5) we're not sequencing experts...we come from totally different fields and most of us had to learn this from scratch
6) we got lucky because bitcoins took off and that helped me fund this without having to use other money
7) still not likely to work with all the genes we want

So, hopefully that makes sense. And i apologize to anyone I may have offended or irritated. Come to San Diego and I'll take you out to lunch.

Also, I don't think I have asked a question yet. Either way, maybe our group could save money on a better/cheaper kit for saliva collection. Does anyone have a good suggestion? Thanks.

[kmcarr]

I really, whether anyone believes me or not, do not know what Auspex Genomics, Inc. is because it doesn't exist (as far as I know at least). That is how I do not know what it is. I know what Auspex Genomics the project is. Also, I had a buddy of mine help me design the "artwork" on that site and the front page as well as a bunch of other stuff on it so maybe he just put that in because he doesn't know (yes...I know i should have seen it but it was tiny and in that corner and sometimes I am not very detailed). I am guessing he just did it cuz he thought that was right. I'll try to remember to take it off in the next few days. Either way, we're not incorporated or a company called Auspex Genomics, Inc. Auspex Genomics was just what we came up with so we could have a website and a name for our project/team.

O.K. Fine. You are not incorporated and the addition of "Inc." to your webpages may have been an honest mistake. But I see your flat reply "I don't know what Auspex Genomics, Inc. is." to be an example of dissembling I was referring to. A more forthright answer would have been something along the lines of "We call our group (team, project, whatever) Auspex Genomics, but we are not a corporation."

By the way there is a registered California corporation name Auspex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. who also happen to be in San Diego. Do you have any connection or relationship with them? If you don't I would suggest you quickly change the name of your project because I doubt they would like a competitor in the same business area (health care technology) with the same name. And before you protest "We're not a competitor because we're not a company.", I doubt they would see it that way.

I always check the internet for anything related to us, because I am human, so I found a question on this forum and I answered it.

Would that be this post by bwallace, who appears to have created an account on SeqAnswers just to make that post? I wonder if bwallace is Brian Wallace, a member of the Auspex Genomics group.

[math_guy]

He is the guy who posted that. I just asked him about it and he said he was trying to see if anyone here would be interested. But he never told me so I answered all those questions. Maybe he should have told me that first...or checked it this weekend, buddy...Thanks Brian

[math_guy]

This is sort of funny. He says that the first response was bashing us and our website so he knew it would bother me since it was my idea (against the whole group) to really make the video on rockethub simple and basic with very little science

[math_guy]

O.K. Fine. You are not incorporated and the addition of "Inc." to your webpages may have been an honest mistake. But I see your flat reply "I don't know what Auspex Genomics, Inc. is." to be an example of dissembling I was referring to. A more forthright answer would have been something along the lines of "We call our group (team, project, whatever) Auspex Genomics, but we are not a corporation."

By the way there is a registered California corporation name Auspex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. who also happen to be in San Diego. Do you have any connection or relationship with them? If you don't I would suggest you quickly change the name of your project because I doubt they would like a competitor in the same business area (health care technology) with the same name. And before you protest "We're not a competitor because we're not a company.", I doubt they would see it that way.

Would that be this post by bwallace, who appears to have created an account on SeqAnswers just to make that post? I wonder if bwallace is Brian Wallace, a member of the Auspex Genomics group.

No. We aren't related to that company but I do remember seeing the name when we were picking a name for our site but we still decided to use our name since it was different enough and didn't want to waste any more time on picking a name

[Bukowski]

You might want to start tending to your disgruntled triallists:

http://seqanswers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31180

[math_guy]

You might want to start tending to your disgruntled triallists:

http://seqanswers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31180

Thanks. I didn't see that.

[math_guy]

Actually...seriously thank you. You seem to be the nicest guy on this forum. I really appreciate that!

[Tony0902]

I just met 2 of the guys from this company

I just met 2 guys from this company. They sold their company last year. But last year they claimed that they were never a company and didn't care about making money.

Just letting everyone know. They said they were not doing it for the money.