Synthetic biology brings a new look to field

Published 4:00 am Monday, November 17, 2008

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Bay Area futurists and their fans gathered Sunday in a coming-of-age celebration for the fledgling field of synthetic biology, which builds living entities from lifeless chemicals.

With its young roots firmly secured in Bay Area universities, this new science aims to transform genetic approaches to research in medicine, energy and agriculture — building microbes that kill cancer, yeast that produces fuel or spiders that spin Kevlar-strength thread.

At the weekend’s first-ever “Convergence ’08” conference at the Computer History Museum, leaders exchanged news from the front lines of research, hoping to excite the public about synthetic biology in the same way that developers of integrated circuits in the 1960s ignited the field of semiconductor electronics.

But opponents are organizing their own movement, as well. In an invitation-only meeting in San Francisco on Thursday, 80 activists discussed strategies to contain the research. They fear it could accidentally escape from the labs of well-intentioned scientists into the environment — or be used by terrorists to make deadly diseases.

“The Bay Area is the hub of research,” said Marcy Darnovsky of the Center for Genetics and Society. “So if there are any so-called ‘bioerrors,’ with release into the environment, we would suffer the impact. We have an obligation to urge greater societal dialogue and regulation.”

The young “synbio” engineers and biologists, almost all under the age of 40, are heirs to the genetic recombinant movement of the 1970s, which turned the Bay Area into the birthplace of biotechnology.

But their ambitions go far beyond those of genetic modification, which simply moves a single gene from one organism into another, like swapping out light bulbs. Synthetic biology uses chemically created pieces of DNA to build genes and insert them into an empty cell — in essence, custom-building an organism from scratch.

Dual promise

The promise of synthetic biology is twofold. By learning how to assemble the minimal genetic requirements for survival, scientists will better understand how life works. But their goals are also practical — these synthetic cells can be put to many uses.

“We’re dealing with systems on a scale we’ve not played with before,” said J. Christopher Anderson of the University of California, Berkeley. On the outside, his E. coli bacteria seems unremarkable. But it will carry DNA with instructions to release a toxin that is deadly to cancer.

“For millennia, man has manipulated natural systems to suit human needs. We’re taking it much further now,” said Anderson. “Using nature, we can design new systems that do not yet exist.”

Stanford University recently recruited bioengineer Drew Endy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to build the foundations of synthetic biology with “BioBricks” — strands of DNA in standardized shapes that can snap together like Legos. Because each strand will perform a predictable function, the collection could turn Stanford into the scientific equivalent of Kragen Auto Parts store.

At UC Berkeley, Jay Keasling is using a yeast with 12 synthetic genes to crank out a precursor to the malaria drug artemisinin. The drug, isolated from a Chinese herb, is in short supply.

Christopher Voight, also of Berkeley, hopes to engineer a spider that can spin out silk that is 10 times stronger than Kevlar — but biodegradable. Other Berkeley scientists are hoping to build plant cells that create rivers of cheap fuel.