Synbio at a Glance

Nishad Gosavi

iPhD, Biological Sciences

What’s all this buzz in science about “Synthetic Biology”?

If you are a science student, you probably have had heard this term sometime in your class. The term “synthetic” refers to man-made tools which provide us with ways to tackle some of the existing problems of the present day society such as poverty, infectious diseases, access to clean water, low agricultural yields and many more; whereas “Biology” refers to study of living organisms in general.

Therefore, the field of synthetic biology aims at creating tools and methods targeted at mitigating these problems in our ecosystem which can ultimately lead us to a safe, clean and a healthy ecosystem. The arena of Synbio (as Synthetic Biology is affectionately referred to) is highly interdisciplinary and consists of fields such as:

Biotechnology
Organic Chemistry
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Ecology
Systems Biology
Bioinformatics
Computer Science

And the list goes on. The word “tool” refers to any technology or innovative/nature inspired process which can be engineered to cater to the need of the hour. To convey in more technical terms, Synbio is about creating and/or manipulating genetic circuits to obtain high yields of a desired biomolecule, coming up with new methods and strategies to target diseases, designing synthetic organisms to combat bacterial infections or myriad other issues. We, as a scientific community believe in the far-reaching effects that Synbio can confer to both the understanding and manipulation of the problems at hand.

To make you realize how important and critical Synbio is, let's discuss some prominent and successful examples already in front of us.

Dr. Jay Keasling, a professor of Biological Engineering at the University of California, Berkley has come up with a way to produce Artemisinin based drugs for the treatment of malaria. He did it by toying with the genetic constituents in a species of yeast.

Artemisinin is a challenge for chemists to synthesize in lab because it contains a peroxide linkage which is something difficult to build in a lab. Therefore, this new approach of producing artemisinin has been a boon to mankind, leading to desirable and affordable medicines.

In another study, scientists at MIT have been successful at creating synthetic bacteriophages by designing new genetic circuits which are being used to treat bacteria resistant to conventional antibiotics.

Synbio is also being used to design genetic circuits to be able to detect a broad range of cell biomarkers and hence give us information about the therapeutic state of the cell. There are wide applications still being tested and calibrated in labs before they enter the market.

Lastly, there’s this popular quote on Synthetic Biology which explains the beauty of it.

“Finally, we have got to a point in human history where we simply do not have to accept what nature has given us.”

Of course, there is always a conflict between two mindsets about accepting nature as it is as opposed to the other wing which prefers manipulating it for the benefit of everyone. But you see, reality always lies somewhere between these two extremes. This being said, I would leave it up to you, as to which side you choose!

IMAGES SOURCED FROM:Artemisinin : BromothymolAMB / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)Bacteriophage : JSalasberry, ADOBESTOCK

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