Will biologists ever be able to actually create a living cell(s) from the requisite inorganic components? Is it possible to create an artificial life form? While the prospect of such a thing might seem like science fiction or a Biblical miracle, humans may actually be inching ever closer to doing exactly that, and the promises of the emerging field of synthetic biology may hold the key.
What is Synthetic Biology and How Does It Work?
Synthetic biology seeks to:
- design and construct new biological structures and systems and
- re-design existing, natural biological systems for specific therapeutic purposes.
Instead of simply manipulating single genes, researchers in this emerging science seek to engineer many genes to work in harmony, like the components of an electronic circuit board. The goal is to build “living machines” from off-the-shelf chemical components, employing many of the same tactic used by electrical engineers to make computer chips.
Just as engineers rearrange capacitors and resistors to create different electric circuits, geneticists can arrange gene promoters and repressors to create gene circuits with different properties. Such genetic circuits have already been used to build a genetic clock and to synthesize cellular machinery that can follow basic logic commands such as AND, OR, and NOR.
Drawing upon their powerful ability to automate the synthesis of DNA molecules, bioengineers envision creating artificial genes and entire genomes (“genetic circuits”) and inserting these assemblages into microorganisms such as bacteria and yeast thus bending the metabolic pathways of those microbes to their will and purpose.
Can Biology Actually Create Life?
The question at this point seems not to be, “Will we ever create life from scratch?” but simply how much creating the life would cost. There is the belief among some that the number of steps that might be real or potential roadblocks to such an undertaking has declined almost to zero. In fact, some researchers optimistically suggest that for less than a third of the approximately $500 million dollars spent to sequence (map) the human genome, it is conceivable that organic chemicals could be transformed into a single-celled organism that would grow, divide, and evolve and that such an amazing and profound feat could be accomplished in 3 to 5 years time.
The Bright Side of Synthetic Biology
Biologists are interested in synthetic biology because it provides a provides another perspective from which to ponder, analyze, and ultimately better understand the living world and its functioning at the genetic and cellular levels. The potential biological applications of this new science are the creation of bioengineered microorganisms that can produce therapeutic pharmaceuticals, repair defective genes, destroy cancerous cells, degrade pollutants and other chemicals, detect toxic chemical, and generate fuels such as hydrogen.
Physicists and chemists view synthetic biology as an approach that will allow them to explore the behavior of molecules and their activity inside living cells. Differences between how a synthetic system is designed to behave and how it actually behaves can serve to underscore relevant intracellular physics. Engineers are interested in synthetic biology because the biological world provides a rich yet largely unrealized potential for tapping energy as well as controlling and processing information and materials.
The Dark Side of Synthetic Biology
While advances in biotechnology present the promise of profound practical and beneficial applications to man and beast, there are those who have voiced caution and concerns regarding possible perils from the application of such endeavors.
Critics envision several possible hazards associated with synthetic biology, including
- the accidental release of a harmful organism or system that while benign in the laboratory, might prove dangerous in the real world and
- the purposeful design and release of a harmful organism or system as a terrorist or military weapon (super plague?).
Scientists working in the field of synthetic biology are attempting to address the critics and their concerns in several ways. First and foremost, this research is conducted in approved and secure facilities and secondly, researchers work only with Biosafety Level 1 organisms and components.
The genetic engineering of the metabolic processes of bacteria to synthesize natural products was first achieved in the early 1970s and engineered bacterial plasmids for biotechnology were developed during the 1980s. While chiefly an organic chemistry engineering discipline, the budding new biotech science of synthetic biology offers researchers the ability to design and construct simplified biological systems as a useful way to test their understanding of the complex functional networks and interplay of genes and biological macromolecules that constitute and mediate life processes.
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