Synthetic Biology Discussion

Last Friday saw the Science House discussion on synthetic biology, where we brought together people from diverse backgrounds including biology research to DIY Bio, patent law to physics, computer science to chemistry, future technology analysis to futurist-inspired art and film. Click here to see photos from the event.

The evening began with a presentation by Stuart Dambrot (futurist/synthesist and technology writer, see Stuart’s full bio here) on the emergence of the field of synthetic biology. Technology trends indicate that existing fields such as biology, computer science and engineering are converging to form new fields such as synthetic biology. Stuart discussed what has been accomplished so far in synthetic biology – from the synthesis of the first artificial organisms to artificial DNA bases that can self-replicate – and concluded with some thoughts on what technologies we might expect in future.

Here is Stuart Dambrot talking about biological computing, slime molds and “plasmobots”, biobots that exhibit biological behaviors. Play video >

Stuart’s lecture notes are here.

Later in the evening, James Jorasch (parallel entrepreneur in high-tech startups and Science House founder) addressed the business aspects of synthetic biology. James gave an overview of Craig Venter’s research, at his two companies, the Craig Venter Institute and Synthetic Genomics. Synthetic Genomics Inc and ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company signed a $300 million 5 year deal in July this year to Develop Next Generation Biofuels Using Photosynthetic Algae.

Also present at the event, were two founding members of DIY Bio NYC, Sung won Lim (DIY bio enthusiast and Physics student, NYU) and Russell Durrett (Biology student, NYU). DIYbio is “an organization that aims to help make biology a worthwhile pursuit for citizen scientists, amateur biologists, and DIY biological engineers who value openness and safety.”

Here is Russell explaining how DIY Bio works. Play video >

Sung and Russell talked about how amateur scientists are getting involved in synthetic biology, and what tools are out there to make it possible. One of these tools is the BioBricks Foundation. A BioBrick™ is the name given to a biological building block that encodes basic biological functions. The Biobricks Foundation, established at MIT, is an open source repository of these standard DNA parts, to which anybody can contribute and which anybody can use to construct novel compositions.

Here is Sung explaining how the BioBricks Foundation works. Play video >

In the Biobricks assembly method, DNA sequences can be added together in a standard fashion like building blocks. Russell and Zhou Zhou (PhD candidate at Columbia Medical Center, Beijing University team member for IGEM ’07) explained how.

Another organization that supplies biobricks parts is Gingko Bioworks. Ginko Bioworks invented the biobricks method in their lab at MIT.

Zhou and Russel also gave an introduction to IGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition), a must for all undergraduate and DIY amateurs. Zhou competeted in the competition last year and the DIY BIo group hopes to have the first team from NYC this year.

Another interesting topic that we talked about at length was the patentability of life, in particular patents in the realm of gene sequences and genetically modified organisms. Patent attorney, Susan Sipos (whose specialty fields include biotechnology, bioinformatics, pharmacology, and nanotechnology) talked about important cases involving patenting of gene sequences and biological organisms. We then discussed the patent case of Myriad technologies, who discovered and patented the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes for breast cancer. This patent has been the subject of ongoing debate. While the discovery of the gene sequence qualified as being patentable, and indeed involved non-trivial work and expensive studies, the price myriad technologies is charging for the test (which they have the sole right to perform), has come under scrutiny.

Thanks to all the participants for some very insightful discussion – Sindre Aarsaether (computer scientist), John Varghese (PhD string theory), John Raho (CFO of Corning, Asia), Jasen Murray (singularity philosopher and genetics researcher), Dave Brand (film, science fiction writer), Robert Wald (founder of the New York AI forum), Shane Hope (artist, inspired by biology and the future. Take a look at his artwork from the perspective of children in the future: http://shanehope.info/).

Pamela Silver’s Lab. They successfully inserted cyanobacteria into zebra fish embryos.

Alan Kay’s talk on teaching Math using visual cues.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 9:34 am and is filed under synthetic biology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.