Jonathan Moreno on Synthetic Biology

What is synthetic biology?

Synthetic genomics, or synthetic biology, involves taking the basic parts of living things--pieces of chromosomes, DNA, genes, proteins--and making a new microorganism. And this has been made possible by the convergence of a lot of new technologies like computing capacity, new microchips, new kinds of chemicals and biological materials. And synthetic biology is perhaps growing even more rapidly right now than new ways of putting information on a computer microchip. It's a rapidly expanding, emerging form of bioengineering.

Why is the announcement from the J. Craig Venter Institute important?

So this announcement is important as one of a series of milestones in synthetic biology. What the institute has been able to do is take one of the synthetic chromosomes, put it into the nucleus of a cell, and in a certain sense reboot the cell to make it follow the instructions of this synthetic chromosome. You might say that they actually made a synthetic cell, and this base, this platform, is now one that could, in principle, create all kinds of new drugs, new vaccines. It could create carbon-neutral energy sources; you could make cells that are instructed to eat globules of toxins in the environment. There are all sorts of things that can be done. This is going to be a major platform for new industry in the 21st century.

How can policymakers ensure that synthetic biology benefits Americans?

This is going to be a key area of innovation in the next 50 years--both for new sources of value for Americans, new ways of improving the lives of Americans through medicine, through public health, but also because our national security is going to be dependent on our continuing to be a leader that cooperates with our friends and allies in biotechnology. So, what we need to do is we need to focus on the question: What are some of the new, potential environmental hazards or security issues that could come out of synthetic biology? Do we have adequate governance that includes self-policing by industry, domestic regulation, and also our global cooperative regulation of this new biotechnology? So, the important thing is we need to ensure that we not overreact, that we have good standards to protect us from untoward events, adverse events that could impair public trust in the science. It also makes sure that our innovators have the flexibility to the important new things that can be done with synthetic biology.