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The last time we caught up with Josiah Gaynor, he was busy devising a musical instrument that produces melodies based on the reactions of plant proteins to light. Now Gaynor, a biophysicist and incoming synthetic biology fellow at NASA, has set his sights on a project with the potential for greater public impact: one that aims to rapidly accelerate the discovery of new antibiotic compounds. Along with Mark Opal, a neurobiologist specializing in drug development, Gaynor has launched The International Laboratory for the Identification of New Drugs (or The ILIAD Project). The idea behind ILIAD is remarkably simple: instead of relying on research institutions and pharmaceutical companies to come up with new antibiotics, ask citizen scientists to do it instead by having them test specimens like plants and insects for antibiotic properties.