From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia.
Synthetic biology is a
new area of research that combines
science and engineering in order
to design and build novel
biological functions and systems.
There are four main branches of
research that define the field:
Biology, Chemistry, Engineering, &
Re-writing.
Biology
Biologists are interested in
learning more about how natural
living systems work. One simple,
direct way to test our current
understanding of a natural living
system is to build an instance (or
version) of the system in
accordance with our current
understanding of the system.
Michael Elowitz's early work
on the
Repressilator is one good
example of such work. Michael had
a model for how gene expression
should work inside living cells.
To test his model, he built a
piece of DNA in accordance with
his model, placed the DNA inside
living cells, and watched what
happened. Slight differences
between observation and
expectation highlight new science
that may be well worth doing. Work
of this sort often makes good use
of mathematics to predict and
study the dynamics of the
biological system before
experimentally constructing it. A
wide variety of mathematical
descriptions have been used with
varying accuracy, including
graph theory,
Boolean networks,
ordinary differential equations,
stochastic differential equations,
and
Master equations (in order of
increasing accuracy). Good
examples include the work of
Adam Arkin and
Alexander van Oudenaarden.
Chemistry
Biological sytems are physical
systems that are made up of
chemicals. Around 100 years ago,
the science of
chemistry went through a
transition from studying natural
chemicals to trying to design and
build new chemicals. This
transition led to the field of
synthetic chemistry. In the
same tradition, some aspects of
synthetic biology can be viewed as
an extension and application of
synthetic chemistry to biology,
and include work ranging from the
creation of useful new
biochemicals to studying the
origins of life.
Eric Kool's group at Stanford,
Steven Benner's group at
Florida,
Carlos Bustamante's group at
Berkeley, and
Jack Szostak's group at
Harvard are good examples of this
tradition.
Engineering
Engineers view biology as a
technology. Synthetic Biology
includes the broad redefinition
and expansion of biotechnology,
with the ultimate goals of being
able to design and build
engineered biological systems that
process information, manipulate
chemicals, fabricate materials,
produce energy, provide food, and
maintain and enhance human health
and our environment. One aspect of
Synthetic Biology which
distinguishes it from conventional
genetic engineering is a heavy
emphasis on developing
foundational technologies that
make the engineering of biology
easier and more reliable. Good
examples of engineering in
Synthetic Biology include Tim
Gardner's pioneering work on an
engineered genetic latch, the
Registry of Standard Biological
Parts, and the intercollegiate
Genetically Engineering Machine
competition
(iGEM).
Re-writing
Re-writers are Synthetic
Biologists who are interested in
testing the idea that natural
biological systems are so
complicated, that we would be
better off re-building the natural
systems that we care about, from
the ground up, in order to provide
engineered surrogates that are
easier to understand and interact
with. Re-writers draw inspiration
from
refactoring, a process
sometimes used to improve computer
software. Drew Endy's
group has done some
preliminary work on re-writing
(e.g.,
Refactoring Bacteriophage T7).
History
In 1978 the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine was awarded to Werner
Arber, Daniel Nathans and Hamilton
O. Smith for the discovery of
restriction enzymes and their
application to problems of
molecular genetics. In an
editorial comment in the journal
Gene Waclaw Szybalski wrote: "The
work on restriction nucleases not
only permits us easily to
construct recombinant DNA
molecules and to analyze
individual genes but also has led
us into the new era of
synthetic biology where
not only existing genes are
described and analyzed but also
new gene arrangements can be
constructed and evaluated" (Gene
1978, 4, p 181).
Key Enabling Technologies
- (please see discussion page
for ideas about what to include
here)
See also
