Just What Is Synthetic Biology?

The term "synthetic biology" appears in the title of a 1913 Nature article but then disappears until the 1980s, at which point its use seems interchangeable with recombinant DNA technology. today, the term is used to describe the wholesale engineering of genetic circuits, entire genomes, and even organisms and has appeared in nearly 50 papers since 2000. nevertheless, the definition remains elusive. Here's what some of the field's practitioners said when asked, "What is synthetic biology?"

"Synthetic biology is doing with biology what we've done with electrical engineering, what chemical engineering has done for chemistry."

-Jay Keasling, professor of chemical engineering, University of California, Berkeley

"The lines between synthetic biology and classical recombinant DNA techniques are still blurred. Basically it's taking those elements to the next level - actually engineering the cell."

-Robert Holt, head of sequencing, Genome Sciences Center, British Columbia Cancer Research Center

"The main issue is separating synthetic biology from existing fields like genetic engineering or cellular engineering. It's treating biology the way you would treat large-scale integrated circuits. We've been dealing with one part at a time or a small number of parts. Synthetic biology is engineering of new systems using parts that we trust. It's applying the best analyses from systems biology to fabricating and testing complex biological machines."

-George Church, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Center for Computational Genetics

"The definition of synthetic biology is elusive, in many ways as elusive as the definition of life. As a physicist, one would like to build machines, robots. That's what we're trying to do with the molecules of life. It looks like engineering, but you have a lot of fundamental questions as well."

-Vincent Noireaux, assistant professor of physics, University of Minnesota

"Let me ask my funding agency. ... I'll get back to you."

-Frederick Blattner, professor of genetics, University of Wisconsin, Madison