What exactly is synthetic biology?
Synthetic biology consists of constructing artificial biological systems or components and altering existing biological systems for particular specifications.
Synthetic biology has many applications, ranging from artificial life to fabricating disease diagnostic tools. For more on the wide ranging applications of synthetic biology, visit the "Applications" subsection of this website.
A great introductory video on synthetic biology is shown below:
Synthetic Biology vs. Genetic Engineering
While synthetic biology and genetic engineering can both involve manipulating DNA and altering genetic material in order to produce and encourage certain traits in a biological system, synthetic biology and genetic engineering are distinctly different disciplines.
Synthetic biology often requires stricter engineering standards. While synthetic biology has sometimes been referred to as "genetic engineering 2.0", as an application of general systems biology, synthetic biology is a much committed to standardizing elements and regulatory components of a system. Synthetic biology is also concerned with the manufacturing of entirely new biological systems, in addition to modifying current ones. Most importantly, however, synthetic biology seeks to synthetic biologists approach problems with a different mindset, seeking to use abstraction and rigorous design models to maximize the predictability and degree of control of the engineered products.
More on General Synthetic Biology
Synthetic biology is a new and highly dynamic discipline. There are many great resources on synthetic biology around the internet; some are listed below.
Dr. Tom Knight explains synthetic biology during an interview with the New Scientist, here.
The Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SBERC) introduces the field of synthetic biology here.
The Scientific American Magazine writes about synthetic biology, here.
Introduction
Synthetic Biology: Why Now?
Synthetic biology has numerous modern day applications that push the limits of multiple disciplines, ranging from biotechnology to engineering to even computer science.
In addition, synthetic biology's applications such as creating molecular circuits and synthetic life are more viable than ever with the advent of technological advances in the fields of gene synthesis, DNA sequencing, and gene modeling. Since synthetic biology deals with creating synthetic systems from so called "blueprints" of genetic material, both synthetic and natural, advances and improvements in the speed and scale of DNA synthesis mechanisms has profound impacts on synthetic biology.
For more on the impact of ever improving gene synthesis techniques and what that means for synthetic biology applications, visit the "Applications" section of this website.