sst-0528

My lab works on the applications of synthetic biology, so we’re very interested in doing useful things with biological systems.
Up to now, life has evolved, and now we actually have the ability and the power to engineer it, to design it.
And so I’m curious about what the natural world is going to look like in the future.
So synthetic biology is sort of the next level of genetic engineering.
So about 40 years ago, we being scientists and engineers, developed techniques to basically move pieces of DNA from one organism to another.
And this was sort of done by physically cutting and pasting.
Now we’re moving beyond that where we can write DNA so we’re no longer limited to the pieces.
We can cut from one and put in another.
We can chemically synthesize this DNA on a machine and put that into an organism.
And now we can even create new organisms completely from scratch.
So if you imagine a cell that’s programed to make a useful compound, say, material or drug, then what you have is basically a micro-scale manufacturing unit.
It’s basically a cellular factory.
And the cool thing about cellular factory is that when you want more factories, you love that cell grow and divide.
So in in the lab, if we have one bacteria, we put it in a flask.
The next day we come in. We have millions, if not billions of bacteria.

The lab focuses on synthetic biology, advancing from traditional genetic engineering to designing and creating new organisms. With the ability to chemically synthesize DNA, researchers can program cells to function as micro-scale manufacturing units for useful compounds, like drugs or materials. This innovative approach allows rapid scaling, as engineered cells rapidly multiply.