by Adam Jutzi
Synthetic Biology is a new scientific field and is often defined as "An interdisciplinary branch of biology and engineering", however this descriptor is exceedingly vague. Personally the description I have come to agree with is that synthetic biology is "The process of manufacturing an organism to fulfill a unique purpose". This is mainly a semantic argument but it is important to have a base to tackle the bigger question of what actually is synthetic biology and the vague nature of the first descriptor prohibits this.
After hearing these descriptions you may be saying to yourself "Wait isn't this just genetic engineering?" and to the layman , yes synthetic biology is the new face of what was once called genetic engineering but officially there are differences between the two. Whereas genetic engineering modifies and edits genes within organisms synthetic biology seeks to engineer and manufacture new biological systems. An example of synthetic biology would be creating a biological system that consumes one chemical and outputs another, while genetic engineering would need to perform this process without creating a system from scratch.
This is where the majority of comparisons between the two stop, but as with all cutting edge sciences there is an elephant in the room waiting for synthetic biology to flinch and it is called public perception. Anyone old enough to read this blog is well aware of the backlash to genetically modified organisms in the public sphere. Synthetic biology being a separate entity from genetic engineering gives it a few degrees of separation from the conflict and the potential for rebranding. This is just conjecture but I can't imagine that without genetic engineering's poor reputation synthetic biology would be considered a separate and unique field.
There are a few main objectives synthetic biology seeks to achieve, one of which is to standardize biological systems and components so they may be used more easily as building blocks for synthetic systems. Additionally synthetic biology is a powerful tool towards natural product synthesis, which would allow production of natural products without non organic interference. The possibilities that the tools synthetic biology provides lend themselves to many different practices and problems, much like how factories can produce any number of objects if synthetic biology achieves its goals then biological factories could do the same.
The amount of breakthroughs, improvements, and discoveries occurring in synthetic biology is staggering and constantly branches into other areas and professions. For example an organism whose only job is to consume oxalate to improve the brewing process may have a purpose in medical fields breaking down and preventing kidney stones. From a start at synthetic biology it branches into medicine and manufacturing with only a cursory exploration and this wide reaching effect means that synthetic biology is hard to nail down as a science or practice.
It is the goal of this blog to discuss the topic of synthetic biology and in the coming weeks we will be exploring topics, ideas, and information related to synthetic biology.
Image Attribution: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978012804659300004X
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