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Thank you very much for the introduction and the invitation to Göttingen. I'm happy that so many people came.
We have already heard that the iGEM competition is one important part of synthetic biology.
Now, I will try to introduce you to my view of the synthetic biology.
The title of my talk "chances and opportunities" is some kind of pleonasm.
Normally it's called "chances and risks", but the risks are sourced out to a second and third talk today.
I was asked to play the optimists roll today, to explain what are the possibilites of synthetic biology.
I'm a bit reserved about that because of different reasons,
but I will try to explain the ideas and essentials of synthetic biology.
At first, one could raise the questions: "What is synthetic biology?"
I don't know what you associate with "synthetic biology" ...
... but I think people are coming up with all kind of descriptions for synthethic biology.
That is not surprising, because even synthetic biologists have many different points of view.
In the end, I will show you that according to my opinion, there are three main classes of synthethic biology.
These classes are very different from each other in their intention, but also in their effects or risks.
Maybe, the most publically appreciated moment of synthetic biology take place about two years ago.
Many newspapers brought headlines like this. ("Wir sind Gott!"; eng: "We are god!").
Some years ago, a german newspapers titled "We are pope!". Now, in the year 2010 ...
... which is just 1% of the new millennium.
But still, we have the first "Jahrtausendsensation" (eng: "Sensation of the millennium")
Now one could ask: "How many 'sensations of the millenium' (SoM) are about to come" ...
... but the first SoM, according to Welt Online, was: "Now, we are God" - not Germany, but all of us ...
... and specially Mr. Craig Venter. He created a synthetic organism.
This organism is showen here. It looks at you with its blue beautiful eyes ...
... to be honest, this aren't eyes but bacterial colonies in the scale of micrometers.
You have seen these colonies in the other talk about the iGEM project. Here, they have an extra gene ...
... which lets them appear blue. This indicates that this is a modified strain.
This strain was then named Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0 ...
... a little bit like a Microsoft version number.
Now, this raises the question: "Is this artificial life?" - later I will explain what was actually done here ...
... but this is how the synthetic biology is recognized from the outside and how it presents itself:
"We are able to create synthetic life!"
There are several definitions for synthetic biology.
I mentioned one here on the slide, which may match the view of most synthetic biologists.
It says: "The design and fabrication of biological components and systems ...
... that do not already exist in the natural world. Furthermore, the re-design and fabrication ...
... of existing biological systems."
For example, to swim as fast as possible.
Or swim into a certain direction.
Okay. So now these biological systems are doing something related to a distinct aim.
This is very important and should not be underestimated.
Especially, if we bring it in context with engineering approaches, as we heard earlier.
Engineering is an important part of synthetic biology, because engineers are doing lots of things ...
... and one very important attribute of things made by engineers is "usefulness".
Otherwise, an engineer wouldn't have fun. A car should drive. Also, it should drive fast.
Bacteria should swim, to the correct direction and with high speed.
There is always a purpose connected to the modified bacteria or living systems.
Why - and this is a very important question - have engineers being interested in biology ...
... in the past years? Engineers normally work with non-living systems.
They build bridges, cars, nuclear power stations, ball pens, and iPhones.
All of it more or less useful items. But in every case, they use physical laws ...
... and well-characterized materials to build something useful.
If you look at nature with the eye of en engineer - by the way, biologists aren't the best to do so - ...
... suddenly, a bacterium looks like a device or machine.
This machine has e.g. a motility apparatus.
Furthermore, it has an envelope or something like cameras on its surface.
Suddenly, this bacterium is described like a technical device. The DNA, for example, ...
... becomes the job to make logical links or communication.
Again, in the eyes of an engineer, the cell gets a modularly architecture with dedicated functions.
This modules and functions are exchangeable and modifiable.
Like we saw, one can change a receptor to make the bacterium to swim towards or away from something.
They will do this because of a modified chemical receptor, whereas the swimming apparatus stays the same.
This means, that the synthetic biology from a engineers point of view has a common presumption.
"Each biological system is a combination of individual and functional elements, which can be rearranged."
And this is the basis of the BioBrick system: These elements can be recombined and put together in a new way.
It's not like a classical biologist would say: "A organism only works like its found in nature."
It's more like a PC, were you can remove your graphic card and replace it by another.
Or, like Craig Venter would say, one can take out the system of the bacterial cell and "reboot" it with a new one.
That's what he said literally about the creation of new cells.
Now, if we stick to the comparative view of computers and bacteria ...
... one can recognize that the nomenclature is dominated by technical descriptions.
If you look at computers, they are made of mainboards and graphic cards.
Those, in turn, are made of circuits, which are made of logical elements.
On physical level, the latter are formed by transistors, resistors, and diodes.
Similarly, a living system can be described. It is formed of molecules, which interact.
The molecules form signaling pathways, forming cells, which form tissues on higher levels.
Just like computers can form networks.
From this engineer's perspective, one can start to operate and create new pathways and networks.
This is a new field of operation for engineers and synthethic biologists, where they can be fully curious.
Now again, if we look at the special qualities of modern art of engineering are we find this:
Modularization, standardization, and automatization.
Today, if a part of your car is broken, the workshop replaces the defective module.
This means, we have standardized parts, which is an important part of modern industry.
This picture may looks a bit difficult ...
... but its taken from the so to say "founding document" of synthetic biology by Drew Endy.
Still, he is one of the spokesmen of synthetic biology.
I think, his article was called "Foundations for engineering biology".
Meaning, the foundation of a basic biologically art of engineering.
You don't need to understand this picture, but it shows how engineers are talking to each other.
If one engineer needs a generator, he states some parameters for that device.
Now, other engineers will produce this generator and the first engineer doesn't have to worry about it.
On the other hand, the generator-engineer does not have to know about the details of the car production.
The two engineers are just exchanging parameters and informations, but each one works on his own level.
Some are building generators and other take bigger parts and put them together.
The idea in this article by Drew Endy was, why souldn't we do the same with biological systems.
They wanted parts, which have parameters and characteristics.
As engineer, you don't have to know how they work. You just know what they can and can not do.
Out of this, the iGEM Registry of Standard Parts was created, like a catalogue.
You look for parts that hopefully fulfill the job you need and just order them. This was the idea.
The whole thing should be as easy as possible, to enable even students to play with the parts.
In a famous and very unique comic, which was published as bonus in a Nature issue ...
... tells the "Adventures in Synthetic Biology" of a kid that is supervised by this female synthetic biologist.
Here she says: "But, the entire point of all this, is that we are gonna hide all this details inside a black box."
... according to the engineer, who doesn't want to think about the details. The part just needs the work.
In the end: "Sweet. Genetic devices. I'm gonna make a whole bunch of 'em."
You see, that's the impulse of crafting ... and then: "To be continued!" ... that's were it starts over.
Again, this all is about the idea to produce whatever you want out of parts.
Here you see an example, which comes from the playful laboratory level.
They wanted to create a rhythmic glowing approach.
On the left, you can see an abstract pathway made of BioBricks.
If you connect them in a proper way and put them into a bacterium, it should duplicate ...
... and glow in a rhythmic manner.
Let's see if this video works ...
... doesn't seem so. Okay, but it's not that important.
This bacterium duplicates, glows, and then turns off again. It blinks, like a biological oscillator.
This can be created by parts that are joint to a system.
This means, one can look at BioBricks as if they were Lego bricks. And a second association is generated, ...
... one can perform the creation of life, which was previously only related to god.
This idea of creation appears in many contexts. In Craig Venter's paper he states:
"Creation of a cell with chemically synthesized DNA" - Here the word "creation" is very important, ...
because it produces the association of a alchemist, who is piecing something together.
I found this picture on the website of Sheref Mansy, who runs a work group for synthetic biology in Italy.
Now, I'm going back to the beginning of my talk to add some details.
On this picture, you can see what Craig Venter did.
In some way, it's a brilliant effort.
They have deleted the DNA from the blue bacterium and put it into yeast cells.
Afterwards, the DNA was extracted from the yeast cells, again, and transformed ...
... into an empty bacterial cell. The DNA of this empty cell has been destroyed in advance.
This was the first approach, in which the previously empty cell became similar to the blue cell from the start.
You could say, the genome was "transplanted" from one cell to another.
To say it on human level: I would remove my brain and replace it by the brain of my wife, ...
... which would make me thinking like her. Sometimes, this might be a wish of hers.
On the other hand, she would lack of a brain, than ...
You could say, the identity of this bacterium has changed.
In the second approach, which was the base of Venter's article, ...
... they left the DNA isolation step out. Instead, they created the genome synthetically.
This means, I don't need a DNA source, but I can create my own genetic information.
And this is the big potential of synthetic biology.
One can customize the genome of a bacterium by just typing its sequence into the computer.
Critics said that in Venter's approach it still was the genome of an already existing organism, which was simply copied.
But, in the end, it worked, which proves the importance of the DNA makes a bacterium to be "like the genes say".
Similar for natural and synthetic DNA.
This creates new possibilities. Now, I can change this DNA as I want. I can delete or change genes.
I can simply customize the organism matching my wishes.
First, this genomes have been transplanted - which is called "rebooting".
Secondly, the DNA can be produced completely artificial, which is not that expensive anymore these days.
After all, I'll get to the topics that I'm interested in the most. I'm not a user or an engineer of synthetic biology.
I'm interested in the applications of synthetic biology.
If my children disassemble a device and put it back together afterwards, they learn a lot about this device.
This is my approach for synthetic biology, were you not only learn something about existing parts but also new ones.
Here you see a comparison by Wendell Lim about synthetic chemistry from the second last century.
Synthetic chemistry took complex natural substances and learned a lot about their structure by analysis, ...
but they also said, you only have a fundamental knowledge about a substance, when you are able to synthesize it.
That's the analogy to synthetic biology. I can also understand biochemically systems ...
... by dissassembling them and putting them back together.
Furthermore, there is more then understanding the systems. Like organic chemists have learned ...
... to create synthetic substances, e.g. Nylon, which are not present in nature, I can create synthetic ...
... and artificial cells that are not present in nature, yet.
From my point of view, there are three classes of synthetic biology.
As I stated in the section about engineering bacteria, parts can be extracted from living cells ...
... and brought into a new context. E.g. cells that flash, cell that count to three, or do math, or swim.
That's the first class: The engineering approach of alteration of the cell.
The second approach would be to completely modify the cells fundamentally.
One could even change the nature of DNA. Some people say, this would make synthetic biology safer.
The third class would be the recapitulation of evolution: How is it possible to create a living cell from simple components?
These classes are showen in this scheme: Evolution started at the bottom ...
... and needed 3 billion years to reach "Leben" (eng: "life"). Synthetic biologists say, we'll do that in the next 10 years.
Probably not, if you ask me. - What I talked about most of the time was this kind of parallel life (= Engineered Life).
This is this life from natural parts, but they do it in different ways.
One aspect that I did not mentioned, is the creation of life with a completely different fundament.
Hence, some questions are raised. Especially, with proto cells there is the question: When is a cell "alive"?
How much do I have to change that the cell isn't alive anymore?
After all, this raises the question for the biologically definition of life.
What happens, if something chemical starts "to live". Do we have to include this into our definition of "life" or not?
Is there something like an "ethic of proto cells"?
Now, I'm at the end of my talk. Thank you very much for your attention.
Furthermore, I want to thank the synmikro center in Marburg (Germany) for their assistance, ...
... especially for our work. Later, during the panel discussion, I will answer all your questions.
Thank you very much!