Engineering Life: Building a FAB for Biology

Baker, David; Church, George M.; Collins, Jim; Endy, Drew; Jacobson, Joseph M.; Keasling, Jay D.; Modrich, Paul; Smolke, Christina D.; Weiss, Ron

doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0606-44

Cited by 139 publications

(88 citation statements)

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“…The advent of synthetic biology has raised the tantalizing prospect of reprogramming cells at will for purposes ranging from the biosynthesis of high-value feedstocks and natural product analogs to the development of cell-based sensors and therapeutics (1). Engineering cells for such tasks requires the introduction of numerous exogenous genes into the genome to create customized "pathways."…”

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confidence: 99%

Reiterative Recombination for the in vivo assembly of libraries of multigene pathways

Wingler

Cornish

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The increasing sophistication of synthetic biology is creating a demand for robust, broadly accessible methodology for constructing multigene pathways inside of the cell. Due to the difficulty of rationally designing pathways that function as desired in vivo, there is a further need to assemble libraries of pathways in parallel, in order to facilitate the combinatorial optimization of performance. While some in vitro DNA assembly methods can theoretically make libraries of pathways, these techniques are resource intensive and inherently require additional techniques to move the DNA back into cells. All previously reported in vivo assembly techniques have been low yielding, generating only tens to hundreds of constructs at a time. Here, we develop “Reiterative Recombination,” a robust method for building multigene pathways directly in the yeast chromosome. Due to its use of endonuclease-induced homologous recombination in conjunction with recyclable markers, Reiterative Recombination provides a highly efficient, technically simple strategy for sequentially assembling an indefinite number of DNA constructs at a defined locus. In this work, we describe the design and construction of the first Reiterative Recombination system in Saccharomyces cerevisiae , and we show that it can be used to assemble multigene constructs. We further demonstrate that Reiterative Recombination can construct large mock libraries of at least 10 4 biosynthetic pathways. We anticipate that our system’s simplicity and high efficiency will make it a broadly accessible technology for pathway construction and render it a valuable tool for optimizing pathways in vivo.

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confidence: 99%

Reiterative Recombination for the in vivo assembly of libraries of multigene pathways

Wingler

Cornish

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Another has to do with methods and mind-sets in biology […]." (Baker et al 2006) Bioengineers expect synthetic biology to turn biotechnology into a real engineering discipline that justifies the utilisation of the term 'engineering'. Thereby, the mind-sets in biology and biotechnology will be replaced by a more engineer-like way of thinking about life.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Conception of Life in Synthetic Biology

Deplazes‐Zemp

2011

Sci Eng Ethics

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The phrase 'synthetic biology' is used to describe a set of different scientific and technological disciplines, which share the objective to design and produce new life forms. This essay addresses the following questions: What conception of life stands behind this ambitious objective? In what relation does this conception of life stand to that of traditional biology and biotechnology? And, could such a conception of life raise ethical concerns? Three different observations that provide useful indications for the conception of life in synthetic biology will be discussed in detail: 1. Synthetic biologists focus on different features of living organisms in order to design new life forms, 2. Synthetic biologists want to contribute to the understanding of life, and 3. Synthetic biologists want to modify life through a rational design, which implies the notions of utilising, minimising/optimising, varying and overcoming life. These observations indicate a tight connection between science and technology, a focus on selected aspects of life, a production-oriented approach to life, and a design-oriented understanding of life. It will be argued that through this conception of life synthetic biologists present life in a different light. This conception of life will be illustrated by the metaphor of a toolbox. According to the notion of life as a toolbox, the different features of living organisms are perceived as various rationally designed instruments that can be used for the production of the living organism itself or secondary products made by the organism. According to certain ethical positions this conception of life might raise ethical concerns related to the status of the organism, the motives of the scientists and the role of technology in our society. Synthetic biologists want to modify life through a rational design, which implies the notions of utilising, minimising/optimising, varying and overcoming life.These observations indicate a tight connection between science and technology, a focus on selected aspects of life, a production-oriented approach to life, and a designoriented understanding of life. It will be argued that through this conception of life synthetic biologists present life in a different light. This conception of life will be illustrated by the metaphor of a toolbox. According to the notion of life as a toolbox, the different features of living organisms are perceived as various rationally designed instruments that can be used for the production of the living organism itself or secondary products made by the organism. According to certain ethical positions this conception of life might raise ethical concerns related to the status of the organism, the motives of the scientists and the role of technology in our society.

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“…The latter, called synthetic biology, is attracting a lot of attention today. 8 For both analysis and synthesis, we need multiple abstractions of the biological materials and reactions. Figure 3 shows examples of abstraction layers.…”

Section: Bioanalysis and Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing Micro- and Nanosystems for a Safer and Healthier Tomorrow

Micheli

2008

IEEE Des. Test. Comput.

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Engineering Life: Building a FAB for Biology

Cited by 139 publications

References 0 publications

Reiterative Recombination for the in vivo assembly of libraries of multigene pathways

Reiterative Recombination for the in vivo assembly of libraries of multigene pathways

The Conception of Life in Synthetic Biology

Designing Micro- and Nanosystems for a Safer and Healthier Tomorrow

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