Shaping the future of synthetic biology

Science ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 348 (6232) ◽  
pp. 296-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Kuiken
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
The Future

Life as It Could Be

2020 ◽  
pp. 101-114
Author(s):  
Luis Campos
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Molecular Biology ◽  
The Future ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
The Universe

This chapter explores the intersection between two related fields: synthetic biology and astrobiology. Pushing the engineering of life past traditional limits in molecular biology and expanding the envelope of life to forms never before extant, synthetic biologists are now beginning to design experimental ways of getting at what astrobiologists have long suspected: that the life known here on Earth is but a subset of vast combinatorial possibilities in the universe. The resonances between the future engineered possibilities of this world and speculations about possible biologies on habitable others are not merely happenstance. Indeed, there is a curious and compelling deeper history interlinking scientific speculation about new forms of life elsewhere in the universe with visions for the human-directed engineering of new forms of life on Earth. For decades, the astrobiological and the synthetic biological have mutually inspired each other and overlapped in powerful genealogical ways.

scholarly journals Systems Biology and Synthetic Biology: A New Epoch for Toxicology Research

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark T. Mc Auley ◽  
Hyunok Choi ◽  
Kathleen Mooney ◽  
Emily Paul ◽  
Veronica M. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Systems Biology ◽  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Aromatic Hydrocarbons ◽  
Personalised Medicine ◽  
Adverse Birth Outcomes ◽  
New Era ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
The Future ◽  
Polycyclic Aromatic ◽  
Innovative Techniques

Systems biology and synthetic biology are emerging disciplines which are becoming increasingly utilised in several areas of bioscience. Toxicology is beginning to benefit from systems biology and we suggest in the future that is will also benefit from synthetic biology. Thus, a new era is on the horizon. This review illustrates how a suite of innovative techniques and tools can be applied to understanding complex health and toxicology issues. We review limitations confronted by the traditional computational approaches to toxicology and epidemiology research, using polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their effects on adverse birth outcomes as an illustrative example. We introduce how systems toxicology (and their subdisciplines, genomic, proteomic, and metabolomic toxicology) will help to overcome such limitations. In particular, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of mathematical frameworks that computationally represent biological systems. Finally, we discuss the nascent discipline of synthetic biology and highlight relevant toxicological centred applications of this technique, including improvements in personalised medicine. We conclude this review by presenting a number of opportunities and challenges that could shape the future of these rapidly evolving disciplines.

Editorial overview: Growing the future: synthetic biology in plants

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. iv-v ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E O’Connor ◽  
Thomas P Brutnell
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
The Future

scholarly journals Whither life? Conjectures on the future evolution of biochemistry

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 20160269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jodi L. Brewster ◽  
Thomas J. Finn ◽  
Miguel A. Ramirez ◽  
Wayne M. Patrick
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Energy Generation ◽  
Sufficient Time ◽  
Evolutionary Time ◽  
Future Evolution ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Regulatory Circuits ◽  
Extant Species ◽  
The Future ◽  
Metabolic Biochemistry

Life has existed on the Earth for approximately four billion years. The sheer depth of evolutionary time, and the diversity of extant species, makes it tempting to assume that all the key biochemical innovations underpinning life have already happened. But we are only a little over halfway through the trajectory of life on our planet. In this Opinion piece, we argue: (i) that sufficient time remains for the evolution of new processes at the heart of metabolic biochemistry and (ii) that synthetic biology is providing predictive insights into the nature of these innovations. By way of example, we focus on engineered solutions to existing inefficiencies in energy generation, and on the complex, synthetic regulatory circuits that are currently being implemented.

scholarly journals Opening up the future(s) of synthetic biology

Futures ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 32-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Frow ◽  
Jane Calvert
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
The Future ◽  
Opening Up

scholarly journals A renaissance in RNA synthetic biology: new mechanisms, applications and tools for the future

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 47-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Chappell ◽  
Kyle E Watters ◽  
Melissa K Takahashi ◽  
Julius B Lucks
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
The Future

scholarly journals Synthetic biology goes live

2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 54-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dek Woolfson
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Subject ◽  
University Of Bristol ◽  
The University

On 14 November last year, the Biochemical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the think-tank BioCentre and the University of Bristol co-hosted a debate on synthetic biology, which was webcast live. Dek Woolfson co-chaired the event from Bristol. Here are his reflections and conclusions from the evening, including some advice on how we might approach the broader issues of the subject and events like this in the future.

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