| Synthetic Biology |
| Tuesday, 10 June 2008 | |
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Classical Biology has traditionally tried to understand existing life. But in the last five years, a brand new science has emerged that turns the paradigm on its head If I were a microbe, my favourite novelist would be Mary Shelley. In her most famous novel, she terrifies people with a creature cobbled together from spare human parts. I like scaring people too with tales from my microscopic world. I know it is considered very bad form among human scientists to use that word, dare I say it, but where I come from, microscopic Fff…, 'Frankenbugs', are almost a banality. So far, nature and evolution have been the sole authors of the rapid succession mutants, but something very different is happening today. Classical biology has traditionally tried to understand existing life. But in the last five years, a brand new science has emerged that turns the paradigm on its head. Synthetic biology, as this new branch of science is called, tries to create new life by cobbling together artificial microorganisms from a 'Lego set' of off-the-shelf genetic building bricks. Each brick has a pre-designed function and contributes to a new metabolic pathway. Synthetic biology is as multi-disciplinary as a science can get. It brings together biochemistry and genetic engineering, and surprisingly, finds inspiration in electronic engineering, as an article below explains. Pioneers in the field are as likely to be computer scientists, electronic engineers or physicists as they are to be biochemists. Traditional wet-bench biologists are oddly absent from the ranks. 'Genetic engineering' is a catch-all expression, but broadly it is a toolkit of methods for cutting and pasting genes together, analysing gene sequences and their functions with computers, and modelling how they behave at the level of a single cell. Synthetic biology is at the top of the genetic engineering hierarchy. It uses the tools of genetic engineering to create genetic building bricks endowed with a designer function. Those bricks can then be assembled into whole new artificial biological systems. Every century brings about its own revolution. The 18th century brought us the humanist ideals of Voltaire and Rousseau, the 19th gave us the mechanised revolution, steam trains, ships, factories. Physics defined the 20th century, yielding the secrets of the atom, electronics and computers. Making predictions is at best an educated guess, but one thing that seems clear is that the 21st century too will leave its mark, and biology appears poised on the cusp of momentous discoveries. In the following set of articles we explore the principles behind synthetic biology, the expectations and fears it raises. The field holds out the promise of revolutionary impact, such as replacing the fossil fuel economy with clean hydrogen power, insulin-producing cells grafted directly into diabetics, 'sentinel' microbes actively patrolling our bodies and repairing tissues, or even blisteringly fast computers made from DNA strands. But every new science also raises deep-rooted and healthy apprehensions about its dangers and unintended consequences. The race for patents could drive some research under wraps, whereas transparency and a genuine public dialogue could go a long way towards ensuring the best outcomes. Tristan Farrow |
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