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Are we doing synthetic biology?

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Systems and Synthetic Biology

Abstract

Synthetic Biology is a singular, revolutionary scenario with a vast range of practical applications but, is SB research really based on engineering principles? Is it contributing to the artificial synthesis of life or using approaches “sophisticated” enough to fall outside the scope of biotechnology or metabolic engineering? We have reviewed the state of the art on synthetic biology and we conclude that most research projects actually describe an extension of metabolic engineering. We draw this conclusion because the complexity of living organisms, their tight dependence on evolution and our limited knowledge of the interactions between the molecules they are made of, actually make life difficult to engineer. We therefore propose the term synthetic biology should be used more sparingly.

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Acknowledgments

We are indebted to Fabiola Barraclough for the correction of the English text and Andrés Moya, Paige Shaklee, Michel Morange and Jaume Bertranpetit for stimulating discussions. EU grant ST-FLOW partially funded this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut Cavanilles de Biodiversitat i Biologia Evolutiva, Universitat de València, Apartat, Postal 22085, 46071, Valencia, Spain

    Manuel Porcar & Juli Peretó

  2. Fundació General de la Universitat de València, Valencia, Spain

    Manuel Porcar

  3. Departament de Genètica, Universitat de València, Valencia, Spain

    Manuel Porcar

  4. Departament de Bioquímica i Biologia Molecular, Universitat de València, Valencia, Spain

    Juli Peretó

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  1. Manuel Porcar
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  2. Juli Peretó
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Correspondence to Manuel Porcar or Juli Peretó.

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Porcar, M., Peretó, J. Are we doing synthetic biology?. Syst Synth Biol 6, 79–83 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11693-012-9101-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11693-012-9101-3

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