Foo Camp: Synthetic Biology - Andy Reitz (blog)

Drew Endy, Christina Smolke

http://openwetware.org/wiki/Foo - get PDF of slides

engineering of genomes on scale of baker's yeast - combining dna from two different organisms

sequence fossils in human dna, of virus that infected our ancestors 5 million years ago. elements of it in our dna, not functional. because the viruses broke in different ways, they can infer what the original viruses were like - yes, they were infectious. like jurassic park, but don't need physical sample - because the material is already inside us.

logic made out of nucleic acids - works in test tubes, not cells. there is a way to do it, tho.

greenfuel - trying to put organisms to eat carbon emissions, also nitrogen emissions from factories

can make organisms that take in a signal, and self organize into shapes/patterns. can draw images out of organisms, that have been specifically engineered.

architecture project at MIT where they want to grow houses - GM trees, like weaving vines that the do in france

Christina Smolke talking about coding biology

we have technology for cutting dna, re-combining it, and writing it out. working on doing automated construction (so you don't have to keep bashing it around). Abstraction - mapping higher order constructions down to genetic code. Can do programming of biological circuits.

productivity improvements in dna synthesis and sequencing - the curves of improvement over the last decade vastly outstrip Moore's law.

all of the circuitry that has been built has been totally asynchronous - most biological systems are broad - fanout. we're starting to go for depth (a -> b -> c -> ...). Nothing clocked yet.

http://parts.mit.edu - a collection of biological parts that have been built by students. Once you due the hard part (the engineering), it is easy to manufacture -- they replicate themselves.

Running into challenges around licensing and patents.

Balance between protecting IP and supporting innovation:

patents
copyright
contracts
public domain
sui generis - "of its own kind" - a specific system for a specific technology; new legislation

http://openwetware.org/wiki/The_BioBricks_Foundation

paper - "DNA synthesis and biological security"

Drew Endy, Christina Smolke\n\nhttp://openwetware.org/wiki/Foo - get PDF of slides\n\nengineering of genomes on scale of baker's yeast - combining dna from two different organisms\n\nsequence fossils in human dna, of virus that infected our ancestors 5 million years ago. elements of it in our dna, not functional. because the viruses broke in different ways, they can infer what the original viruses were like - yes, they were infectious. like jurassic park, but don't need physical sample - because the material is already inside us.\n\nlogic made out of nucleic acids - works in test tubes, not cells. there is a way to do it, tho.\n\ngreenfuel - trying to put organisms to eat carbon emissions, also nitrogen emissions from factories\n\ncan make organisms that take in a signal, and self organize into shapes/patterns. can draw images out of organisms, that have been specifically engineered.\n\narchitecture project at MIT where they want to grow houses - GM trees, like weaving vines that the do in france\n\n $\"foo_christina_smolke_talking.jpg\"$
Christina Smolke talking about coding biology\n\nwe have technology for cutting dna, re-combining it, and writing it out. working on doing automated construction (so you don't have to keep bashing it around). Abstraction - mapping higher order constructions down to genetic code. Can do programming of biological circuits.\n\nproductivity improvements in dna synthesis and sequencing - the curves of improvement over the last decade vastly outstrip Moore's law.\n\nall of the circuitry that has been built has been totally asynchronous - most biological systems are broad - fanout. we're starting to go for depth (a -> b -> c -> ...). Nothing clocked yet.\n\nhttp://parts.mit.edu - a collection of biological parts that have been built by students. Once you due the hard part (the engineering), it is easy to manufacture -- they replicate themselves.\n\nRunning into challenges around licensing and patents.\n\nBalance between protecting IP and supporting innovation:\n

patents\n
copyright\n
contracts\n
public domain\n
sui generis - \"of its own kind\" - a specific system for a specific technology; new legislation\n

\n\nhttp://openwetware.org/wiki/The_BioBricks_Foundation\n\npaper - \"DNA synthesis and biological security\"\n\n\n