A bit like nanotechnology in that it is bigger than a single term can capture, synthetic biology is here and it is beginning to effect a merge between computer and DNA. It is also, I argue in a column in the January issue of The Scientist, the clearest evidence that evolution is not only evident in our world but now a tool of human engineering at many levels. In other words, to give away my none too clever pun, the real “intelligent design.”
Anyway Art sent me this piece from San Diego Union in which the conceptual aspects of synthetic biology are discussed and framed.
It is the best newpaper piece I have ever seen among dozens in terms of explaining the field and laying out what it can do and why it matters how we do it.
In the piece it is made clear that people understand (hopefully) that where synthetic biology is concerned we damn well better have ethical standards before this technology starts spewing biological weapons in someone’s basement or producing killer computers:
“Possibly the best protection is promulgation of ethical standards. If people act now, they can stop a hacker culture from the start.” Scientists and policy makers have begun discussions, but few existing regulations apply to this new endeavor.
Leaders in the field convened the intercollegiate Genetically Engineered Machine, or iGEM, competition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge last month. Nine teams fielded by universities and colleges from San Francisco to Zurich presented projects in a prize-less contest.
“We could have made this another ‘robot wars’ scenario and got the kids all excited about bashing each other’s biology,” said geneticist George Church, of Harvard University, who helped organize the meeting. “But we specifically discouraged that and instead encouraged a more constructive way of looking at things.”
Each team picked a goal, some task for their bacteria to accomplish, then designed a biological circuit to do the job using plug and play components call BioBricks. Each component is a piece of DNA that can do a single simple thing, like make a protein to sense light, relay a signal or fluoresce. The students strung together BioBricks, much like assembling a simple electrical circuit from an electronics kit, and stuck them into cells to see if they would boot up properly. Revisions are always needed.