Tag Archives: hype

Following last weekend’s International Gentically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM), there’s been a flurry of news about synthetic biology. Alla Katsnelson’s blog at The Scientist covered the competition quite well. I was especially amused by this bit, which reveals one of the diagnostic markers of a hype infection:

What has hobbled genetic engineering so far, according to iGEM devotees, is a lack of modularized parts, leaving researchers to build everything from scratch. That’s where the Registry of Standard Biological Parts comes in — so far, it contains all of the 1500 or so elements built by all the teams from the past four years, and synthesized such that they’re easily mixed and matched. The biobricks, as they’re called, are stored both as a list of sequences in a computerized database and as vials of plasmids in a couple of freezers. “It’s not so important that it’s biobricks,” [event coordinator Mac] Cowell said, as long as there is some standardized system.

This reminds me of the elaborate rhetorical dances Segway promoters do to avoid any mention of bicycles. I know, it’s tough when you’re a true believer in a new technology, and people keep bringing up something much older and more established that makes your toy look, well, kind of lame by comparison. For synthetic biologists, the elephant in the room is a collection of millions of modular biological components that are already available, have already been proven in the most brutal product testing program on the planet, and carry a lifetime warranty to work well together.

I’m talking about naturally occurring genes, proteins, protein domains, gene exons, inhibitory RNAs, and all the other astonishingly efficient devices that nature uses to build organisms. These pre-engineered modular parts are already organized into an object-oriented system, complete with inherited interfaces. The main hurdle in genetic engineering now is crappy documentation, not a lack of parts. Nature, sadly, didn’t prepare any manuals, so genetic engineers have to figure out how this wonderful library of components works. The little progress they’ve made on that has already yielded momentous practical results, from biotechnology-based drugs to genetically engineered crops, and there’s no sign they’re slowing down.

Synthetic biologists, though, have decided to throw out the whole mess and start from scratch. There’s some merit in that approach, but let’s not deceive ourselves; evolution thought of this first, and it has a 4 billion year head start. So while proponents see synthetic biology as the dawning of a new industrial revolution, it seems more likely that it will be an incremental step forward in a long, slow process. Conversely, the field is also drawing criticism and doomsaying from the usual cast of characters, who area already starting to proclaim that synthetic biology is annoying God, endangering the planet, or preparing to do some other terrible mischief. Indeed, my former colleagues at NYU’s journalism school already see a potentially shrill debate coming, and they’re taking the right steps to stabilize it. The excellent report on their recent synthetic biology panel discussion gives me hope that the news media might be able to keep this discussion informed, if not civilized.

For my own part, I’m betting that synthetic biologists will accomplish at least one important breakthrough: definitively disproving “intelligent design” creationism. Continue reading →