If you're new to synthetic biology, you might be wondering what it is. You've probably heard of biotechnology and genetic engineering, but if not, here's a brief introduction: Biotechnology is based on a single organism at a time, while synthetic biology techniques can be used to design and build new organisms from scratch. Genetic engineering manipulates the genetic material of an individual organism, while synthetic biology designs and builds wholly new entities with new functionalities. Programming starts with a computer that has an operating system already installed and then adds layers of code on top of it to create unique applications. Synthetic biology begins with natural systems and uses them as building blocks for creating novel structures
Synbio is a new field of science that uses engineering principles to design and build biological systems that do not exist in nature. Synthetic biology seeks to improve our current understanding of how biological systems work by using engineering methods to put together parts that we think will work together. The goal is to build new biological systems that have useful functions. For example, synbio could be used to create better medicines or more efficient ways of generating clean energy from renewable sources like solar power or wind power.
In the world of biology, there are two terms that you'll likely come across in your research: synthetic biology and biological engineering. They're often used interchangeably, but they mean different things.
What is synthetic biology? Synbio (short for "synthetic biology") refers to a new field of study and engineering that uses genetic material to create organisms or machines with altered features. In other words, synbio refers to using DNA and other parts of living organisms (like genes) to build something new—whether it's something as simple as a plant or fish, or something more complex like an artificial cell made from lab-made DNA.
What is biological engineering? Biotechnology refers specifically to engineered bacteria used for commercial purposes such as manufacturing pharmaceuticals or making biofuel from crops like corn or sugarcane
Synbio is a new field of science, but it's also not biotechnology, genetic engineering or programming. It's a combination of all three.
Synbio combines the techniques from each of these fields to create new organisms from scratch. In this way, synbio is similar to genetic engineering in that it involves manipulating DNA; however, it differs from traditional genetic engineering because it involves creating entirely new organisms rather than simply altering existing ones. It also differs from programming since synbio techniques allow scientists to design an organism using various parts and then assemble them together into a single genome (the DNA sequence that controls an organism).
Genetic engineering is a subset of synthetic biology. Synthetic biology is a subset of biotechnology and even further down the line, biotechnology is a subset of chemistry. In other words, synthetic biology can be defined as "the use of chemical processes to create new organisms."
Genetic engineering is the most commonly used term in this field because it signifies that genes are being altered or added to an organism's DNA rather than modified through natural processes like selection or mutation (i.e., random changes). For example, scientists might take an existing plant species and genetically engineer it so that its seeds will produce oil instead of flowers or fruit; this would allow farmers to harvest more oil per acre planted than they could if they used traditional farming methods!
Synthetic biology is usually thought of as the study or practice of building new biological systems and organisms. Genetic engineering, which is a subset of synthetic biology, uses genetic material from existing organisms to modify existing systems; it's not used to design or build something new.
Genetic engineering can be used to modify existing organisms in order to add or remove certain traits or functions. For example, scientists may use genetic engineering to change an organism's genome by inserting genes from another species into its DNA sequence (this process is called recombinant DNA technology). They can also use genetic engineering to delete specific genes from an organism's genome—for instance, deleting a gene that causes disease will eliminate that disease from people who have it (this process is called genome editing).
When people talk about synthetic biology as a whole today, they're usually referring more specifically to bioengineering: using biotechnology techniques like recombinant DNA technology and screening/selection methods such as directed evolution in order to design synthetic biological systems (which could potentially include living cells) with new functionalities.
In this context, synbio is a distinct field of study, but it does use some of the same tools as programming. Programming is the process of writing instructions for a computer to execute. The instructions can be incredibly complicated and may require massive amounts of memory and computing power to run. In contrast, synbio uses biological components (DNA molecules) in its programming model that are much smaller than computers and do not require nearly as much processing power for execution.
Synthetic Biology vs Programming:
Programming: designing computational systems using software languages that are directly executed by hardware (like CPUs).
Synthetic Biology: designing complex biological systems using genetic engineering techniques directly executed by natural selection
Think of your computer. It has an operating system already installed, and then you can add layers of code on top of it to create unique applications.
Synthetic biology begins with natural systems and uses them as building blocks for creating novel structures such as new organisms. Like programming, a lot of people are working in different fields within synthetic biology—some people work on software, others work on hardware or data analysis—but what they have in common is that they're creating something from scratch by applying their knowledge about nature's processes.
Synthetic biology is a new field of science that combines elements of biotechnology, genetic engineering, and programming. It is a new way to design and build biological systems that do not exist in nature.
Synthetic biologists have been able to make advances because research in all three fields has progressed to the point where we can design and build biological systems that do not exist in nature.
The field of synthetic biology is still in its infancy, but it has huge potential to change the world. While there are many applications for this technology being explored right now (including renewable fuels, drought-resistant crops, and disease treatments), we have only scratched the surface of what’s possible.