Synthetic biology. Synthetic biology is a new area of biological research that
combines biology and engineering in order to design and build new biological
functions and systems in cells. So how does it work? In synthetic biology you
can think of a cell almost like a computer. In a computer there are a whole
lot of individual parts like memory, CPUs and video cards which work together
to provide different functionalities. In cells there are also a lot of different
parts things called membranes, mitochondria, ribosomes, enzymes that work
together providing different functions to make the whole cell work. All of these
different parts are coded for by a cell's DNA. The same way computer programs
have a code to make them work and in the same way we use different bits of code
in different computer programs we can also use different bits of DNA to
program a cell. We call these bits of DNA biobricks. These biobricks can
perform a range of tasks such as construction scaffolds for complex
biological structures, electrical wiring and even on-off switches inside the
cell. The biobricks can then be connected like computer circuitry and the
synthetic biologist then arranges these individual components to engineer a
cellular production line designed to run at maximum efficiency. So what makes
synthetic biology different from plain old genetic engineering? Well in genetic
engineering a few genes might be added or deleted from a cell but these genes
already exist in nature. In synthetic biology we are making biological parts
that don't already exist in nature either by extensively modifying existing DNA
code or by creating entirely new bits of code that produce new components. This is
like writing a new program for the cell and getting it to work properly with
existing DNA and cell parts. So what might synthetic biology be used for? One
example is creating cells that produce special high-tech products that humans
can harvest and use. Currently synthetic biologists are exploring ways to make
low-cost drugs that will overcome global shortages for diseases such as malaria.
They are also investigating ways to turn sugarcane into jet fuel and create
super strong super light textiles like spider silk. The cells are placed inside
vats or fermenters and a kick-started into action soon to begin producing large
quantities of the products they have been engineered to produce. Despite the
modifications to a cell's genetic material the process is safe because the
cells design not to reproduce outside of these specially controlled
artificial environments making them a safe environmentally friendly renewable
mode of production. In the future synthetic biology could be used to
alert us to the presence of environmental toxins, produce carbon
neutral fuel sources and help us diagnose and protect us from disease. Right
now however there is still a lot to learn because although we know how to
read and write the genetic code we still don't know how to use it to solve a
particular problem. But as we learn more about synthetic biology we will be able
to design more complicated cell systems and tackle many of the problems facing
our modern world today. In theory the uses and applications of synthetic
biology are only limited by our imagination.
