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Synthetic People / Creating Life from Scratch
Published in Jonathan Anomaly, Creating Future People, 2020
The fact that the ingredients to build life are ubiquitous doesn’t mean life is easy to create. But it can be created, especially when its steps are simplified and automated. Synthetic biology is a rapidly growing field that allows scientists to take amino acids and – with the help of the right lab equipment – transform them into strands of DNA called ‘BioBricks’ that can be used to alter or build organisms. The amount of information required to understand and build even the simplest self-replicating cell is enormous. So synthetic biology could not have emerged until chemistry, physics, and genetics had become mature sciences, and computation had become powerful enough to sift through vast amounts of data faster than people can. But it is here. Synthetic biology will transform our world by giving us new kinds of food, allowing us to create new forms of life, and enabling us to transform into a new kind of creature.
Engineering Escherichia coli to Combat Cancer
Published in Ananda M. Chakrabarty, Arsénio M. Fialho, Microbial Infections and Cancer Therapy, 2019
Carlos Piñero-Lambea, David Ruano-Gallego, Gustavo Bodelón, Beatriz Álvarez, Luis Ángel Fernández
The field of synthetic biology is now emerging to bring engineering approaches into biomedicine. As researchers build constructs (e.g., synthetic gene networks and programmable organisms) effective synthetic biology therapies are being implemented through rational design to alter mechanisms and processes underlying disease [48–50]. Thus, using tools from synthetic biology, researchers have now the capability to engineer gene circuits that allow bacteria to communicate and express therapeutic or diagnostic molecules inside tumors. In a recent study, bacteria were engineered with artificial genetic circuits for killing cancer cells in three different ways: by expressing genes to produce an antitumor toxin, by expressing genes to activate a host immune response, and by expressing genes to trigger programmed tumor cell death. To prevent potential side effects from these drugs, the researchers added a control circuit based on quorum sensing (QS). Upon reaching a predetermined target level, the bacterial cells released their toxic contents all at once. Following quorum lysis, surviving bacteria reseed the growing population, leading to pulsatile delivery cycles [51].
Introduction
Published in Tina Stevens, Stuart Newman, Biotech Juggernaut, 2019
Chapter 5, “Synthetic Biology: Extreme Genetic Engineering,” is the only portion of the book to describe more general questions of bioengineering, but primarily because techniques such as CRISPR/Cas9 gene manipulation being developed in the nonhuman and even non-animal realm are already being used in attempts to genetically engineer prospective people. The chapter covers developments in the emerging science and technology platform, “synthetic biology.”
Design of artificial cells: artificial biochemical systems, their thermodynamics and kinetics properties
Published in Egyptian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 2022
Adamu Yunusa Ugya, Lin Pohan, Qifeng Wang, Kamel Meguellati
In conclusion, synthetic biology has been gaining importance during the past decade. The biological cell-like structures that exhibit a few key characteristics of living biological cells have been used to construct artificial cells by either the top-down or bottom-up approach, including the building of non-living materials. Nowadays, scientists are consistently relating various genetic materials to produce a wide range of consumer products, from biofuels to cosmetics. In medicine, synthetic biology has emerged as a relatively young field that is pushing boundaries in the creation of microbes that are able to destroy cancer cells in the human body and also clean up our environment. The advantages of using artificial cells are as follows: (a) engineered organisms are replaced to produce pharmaceuticals and fuels; (b) a better way to understand and investigate cellular life; (c) the non-living is connected with the living world; (d) applications in biomedical fields, medical imaging, and drug delivery; and (e) many new functions which are absent in biological cells can be added.
Synthetic biology-based portable in vitro diagnostic platforms
Published in Alexandria Journal of Medicine, 2018
Almando Geraldi, Ernawati Arifin Giri-Rachman
Synthetic biology utilizes forward engineering approaches to seek interchangeable parts from natural biology and assemble those parts into systems that function unnaturally.9 In the context of development of diagnostic methods, synthetic biology approaches are typically focused on building novel biosensing systems with a modular architecture consisting of sensor, signal processor, and reporter modules with measurable output (Fig. 1).11 As synthetic biology field matured, most components and parts to build such biosensing system are readily standardized and catalogued.12 Consequently, when applied in the development of IVD platforms, the utilization of synthetic biology approaches is relatively more straightforward and inexpensive when compared to PCR-based and antibody-based platforms.4,9
Considerations for the governance of gene drive organisms
Published in Pathogens and Global Health, 2018
Larisa Rudenko, Megan J. Palmer, Kenneth Oye
The Resolutions arising from the Conference address, among other things, two emerging technologies: the first calls upon the Society to undertake an assessment …. to examine the organisms, components, and products resulting from synthetic biology …. which may be beneficial or detrimental to the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity… and to recommend how IUCN, including its Commissions and Members, could approach the topic of synthetic biology and engage in ongoing discussions and deliberations with the synthetic biology community.The resolution immediately following the one addressing synthetic biology requests ‘with urgency’ that the Director General of the ICUN and Commissions assess the implications of Gene Drives and related techniques and their potential impacts on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity as well as equitable sharing of benefits arising from genetic resources, in order to develop IUCN guidance on this topic,while refraining from supporting or endorsing research, including field trials,into the use of gene drives for conservation or other purposes until this assessment has been undertaken. [emphasis added]It is interesting to note that in the first, there is a willingness to engage with researchers, which appears to imply supporting or endorsing research, while in the recommendation for gene drives, there is an explicit prohibition even against research to determine what the risks associated with gene drive organisms might be.