It is science so new that even Harvard does not yet offer a formal course in it, although some of the field's pioneering research has been done at the university as well as down the avenue at MIT.Sometimes called "genetic engineering on steroids," synthetic biology is a fuzzily-defined but fast-emerging science that some believe will transform genetic approaches to research in medicine, energy, ecology, agriculture, and more in the coming decades. At heart, it is about building living entities from lifeless chemicals.
Instead of just modifying existing organisms - as genetic engineers have done for 30 years - synthetic biologists are itching to build all-new life forms from artificial DNA.
"The idea is to synthesize DNA in an organized way, so we don't have to rely on nature to make useful things," said Pamela A. Silver, a Harvard Medical School professor, who will teach the university's first synthetic biology course in the fall.
Synthetic biology looks more and more to change genetic engineering into something that really is like modern engineering with a catalog of parts that can be repeatably used. This has huge potential....and of course, there are already people complaining that the researchers are "playing god" ...especially since there's a plan to unveil the first purely synthetic organism - a bacteria - by year's end.
Wow.
Think about that a second.
Now to twist the tails of those that are against this:
And Man said, "Let there be Life," and there was and it wriggled and swam within the petri dish and he saw that it was good. It was dusk and dawn of another age.
How do you see this developing? It certainly seems like the kind of thing that is likely to develop a hacker culture/aesthetic in some practitioners, with the unpleasant codex of script kiddies/crackers.
ReplyDeleteGiven the (hopefully) modular nature of the systems involved, the entire structure of science research, and an excellent chance of it developing รก la Computer Science/Software Engineering, what do you see for the future?
It seems to me that there'll probably be a long lag time before these organisms can survive outside in vitro environments, and big labs will get there first, but the hobbyists will get there. How in god's name do you regulate that, or stop the knowlege and tools from getting cheaper and more easily accessible?
I suspect that over time there might be a something analogous to a hacker, but...at the same time...its not the same as working on a computer or coding. I don't think that there will be a script kiddie analog. This is going to require more thought and patience than what script kiddies do.
ReplyDeleteI do see a 'cottage industry' of smaller places that work on making and patenting specialized sequences and then licensing them out.
As for terrorism? Well, it will happen, but not on the great scale that doomsday people say it will. The anthrax attack post 911 wasn't a doomsday strike like many thought it would have been. I doubt it will be here either.
Additionally, honestly, doomsday bugs will probably not happen at all. Radiological weapons have been doable for ages: just ask that radioactive boy scout from the early 90s.