Michael Laufer

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]

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 is 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]

See also

• Jo Zayner
• Open Source Medical Supplies