How synthetic biology can improve our health, food and materials
1,300,295 views | Emily Leproust • TED@BCG
What if we could use biology to restore our balance with nature without giving up modern creature comforts? Advocating for a new kind of environmentalism, scientist and entrepreneur Emily Leproust rethinks modern sustainability at the molecular level, using synthetic biology to create green alternatives. From lab-developed insulin and disease-resistant bananas to airplanes made of super-strong spider silk, she explains how reading and writing DNA can lead to groundbreaking innovations in health, food and materials.
What if we could use biology to restore our balance with nature without giving up modern creature comforts? Advocating for a new kind of environmentalism, scientist and entrepreneur Emily Leproust rethinks modern sustainability at the molecular level, using synthetic biology to create green alternatives. From lab-developed insulin and disease-resistant bananas to airplanes made of super-strong spider silk, she explains how reading and writing DNA can lead to groundbreaking innovations in health, food and materials.
Learn how Twist Bioscience is writing the future of sustainability.
About the speaker
Emily Leproust is an early pioneer in the synthesis and sequencing of DNA.
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Jane Calvert, et al. | The MIT Press, 2017 | Book
Synthetic Aesthetics: Investigating Synthetic Biology's Designs on Nature
This is a great discussion on the intersectionality between synthetic biology and design. There are six boundary-crossing collaborations between artists and designers and synthetic biologists from around the world, some of which are fictional, that help us understand the current and future possibilities.
United Nations, 2015 | Explore
"The United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals"
The United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals include synthetic biology as part of the solution to address eight of these objectives: clean water and sanitation, decent work and economic growth, industrial innovation, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, responsible production and consumption, life below water and life on land.
Mike Berners-Lee | Cambridge University Press, 2019 | Book
There Is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years
Increasing energy year over year, and we're now in the Anthropocene where it is humans who are affecting the planet. We can live better than ever … if we don't destroy our planet in the meantime. Because our challenges are now global and intertwined, we cannot look at just the science or politics or economics, we must look at everything together.
Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything with Russ Altman | 2017 | Listen
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This is a great podcast on The Future of Everything radio show, where Stanford bioengineers Russ Altman and Christina Smolke discuss advances in our ability to create medications and the implications it could have for billions of people worldwide in the not-too-distant future. There are many examples of how synthetic biology in a bottoms-up approach can drive better medicines and other molecules, from cancer drug Taxol to painkillers.
Chris Mooney, John Muyskens and Carolyn Van Houten | The Washington Post, 2019 | Article
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Michael Lewis | W. W. Norton & Company, 2019 | Book
The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy
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Amanda Gorman | Viking Books, 2021 | Book
The Hill We Climb and Other Poems
Amanda Gorman inspired a nation with her poem on Inauguration Day. Her words push each of us to check ourselves, our perceptions and our actions, always working toward positive change. She has a way with words that acknowledges difficulty yet emboldens us to move forward. While the world is facing many grand challenges, "there is always light, if only we are brave enough to see it. If only we are brave enough to be it."
About TED Institute
Every year, TED works with a group of select companies and foundations to identify internal ideators, inventors, connectors, and creators. Drawing on the same rigorous regimen that has prepared speakers for the TED main stage, TED Institute works closely with each partner, overseeing curation and providing intensive one-on-one talk development to sharpen and fine tune ideas. The culmination is an event produced, recorded, and hosted by TED, generating a growing library of valuable TED Talks that can spur innovation and transform organizations.
Learn how Twist Bioscience is writing the future of sustainability.