Jul 16 2012: Just to clarify, synthetic biology does not necessitate "creating life from scratch". Synthetic biology as a field aims to create functions and systems not found naturally. This includes (for example) introducing genes for fluorescent proteins into E.Coli, which is a form of genetic engineering that has been done for quite a while now.
The main difference in synthetic biology is that it focuses on establishing tools to do so in a standardised way, allowing different labs to design gene constructs that are compatible with each other.
Within the scope of the iGEM competition we are a part of, this includes finding 'useful' genes, isolating them for transformation into microbial cells such as E.Coli, and submitting these new gene constructs to a centralised registry so that future teams can utilise the genetic constructs we have made.
Jul 16 2012: Hi, I am one of the members of this iGEM team. Here's some added information about our project that we would like your opinion on. In order to prevent horizontal gene transfer, we are engineering a system of "kill switch" genes into our cells. In effect, if the cells lose their engineered plasmids to wild type cells, this triggers they system, killing the cells, and preventing the introduced genes from entering the environment.
Separately, we have an exonuclease system that will degenerate any extracellular DNA, preventing genes from being released into the environment after cell death.
What other kinds of safeguards do you think are necessary if such a system is actually put into place?
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A reply on Conversation: Should Synthetic Organisms be released to clean plastic pollution from the ocean?
The main difference in synthetic biology is that it focuses on establishing tools to do so in a standardised way, allowing different labs to design gene constructs that are compatible with each other.
Within the scope of the iGEM competition we are a part of, this includes finding 'useful' genes, isolating them for transformation into microbial cells such as E.Coli, and submitting these new gene constructs to a centralised registry so that future teams can utilise the genetic constructs we have made.
A comment on Conversation: Should Synthetic Organisms be released to clean plastic pollution from the ocean?
Separately, we have an exonuclease system that will degenerate any extracellular DNA, preventing genes from being released into the environment after cell death.
What other kinds of safeguards do you think are necessary if such a system is actually put into place?