Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Designing de novo: interdisciplinary debates in synthetic biology

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Systems and Synthetic Biology

Abstract

Synthetic biology is often presented as a promissory field that ambitions to produce novelty by design. The ultimate promise is the production of living systems that will perform new and desired functions in predictable ways. Nevertheless, realizing promises of novelty has not proven to be a straightforward endeavour. This paper provides an overview of, and explores the existing debates on, the possibility of designing living systems de novo as they appear in interdisciplinary talks between engineering and biological views within the field of synthetic biology. To broaden such interdisciplinary debates, we include the views from the social sciences and the humanities and we point to some fundamental sources of disagreement within the field. Different views co-exist, sometimes as controversial tensions, but sometimes also pointing to integration in the form of intermediate positions. As the field is emerging, multiple choices are possible. They will inform alternative trajectories in synthetic biology and will certainly shape its future. What direction is best is to be decided in reflexive and socially robust ways.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. For instance, the last European funding scheme: FP7 KBB.2013.3.6-02 Synthetic Biology Towards Applications (http://www.2020-horizon.com/Synthetic-Biology-towards-applications-i1060.html) research on the ethical, legal, and social implication was requested as a component of proposed research projects.

  2. The second author of the paper is a biologist by training, working in the field of synthetic biology, and has been an advisor of iGEM teams since 2008. The first author of the paper does social studies of science. Although this is not an ethnographic paper, the paper benefits from the ethnographic experiences of the author, including talks and interviews with engineers and biologists in the field. She was also an advisor of the Valencia-Biocampus iGEM team in 2012.

References

  • Adrianantoandro ES et al (2006) Synthetic biology: new engineering rules for an emerging discipline. Mol Syst Biol 2:1–13

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson JN et al (2012) Engineering and ethical perspectives in synthetic biology. EMBO Rep 13:584–590

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Anonymous (2009) What’s in a name? Nat Biotechnol 27:1071–1072. doi:10.1038/nbt1209-1071

    Google Scholar 

  • Arkin AP, Fletcher D (2006) Fast, cheap and somewhat in control. Genome Biol 7:114–119

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ball P (2004) Synthetic biology, starting from scratch. Nature 431:624–626

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bedau M, Church G, Rasmussen S, Caplan A, Benner S, Fussenegger M, Collins J, Deamer D (2010) Life after the synthetic cell. Nature 465:27

    Google Scholar 

  • Bensaude-Vincent B (2007) Reconfiguring nature through synthesis: from plastics to biomimetics. In: Newman WR (ed) The natural and the artificial. An ever-evolving polarity. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Blakes J, Twycross J, Romero-Campero FJ, Krasnogor N (2011) The infobiotics workbench: an integrated in silico modelling platform for systems and synthetic biology. Bioinformatics 27:3323–3324

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bok von Wûlfingen B (2009) Biology and the systems view. EMBO Rep 10:37–41

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boldt J, Muller O (2008) Newtons of the leaves of grass. Certain ethical implications of synthetic biology research go beyond those of genetic engineering. Nat Biotechnol 26:387–389

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Boogerd FC, Bruggeman F, Hofmeyr JH, Westerhoff HV (2007) Systems biology. Elsevier, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown N (2003) Hope against hype—accountability in biopasts, presents and futures. Sci Stud 16(2):2–21

    Google Scholar 

  • Cai Y, Lux MW, Adam L, Peccoud J (2009) Modeling structure-function relationships in synthetic DNA sequences using attribute grammars. PLoS Comput Biol 5(10)

  • Calvert J (2010) Synthetic biology: constructing nature? Sociol Rev 58:95–112

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Calvert J, Martin P (2009) The role of social scientists in synthetic biology. EMBO Rep 10(3):201–204

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Campos L (2010) That was the synthetic biology that was. In: Schmidt M, Kelle A, Ganguli-Mitra A, Vriend H (eds) Synthetic biology. Springer, Netherlands

    Google Scholar 

  • Cardinale S, Arkin AP (2012) Contextualizing context for synthetic biology-identifying causes of failure of synthetic biological systems. Biotechnol J 7:856–866

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Carlson RH (2010) Biology is technology: the promise, peril and new business of engineering life. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Carrera J, Elena SF, Jaramillo A (2012) Computational design of genomic transcriptional networks with adaptation to varying environments. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109:15277–15282

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • De Lorenzo V (2010a) Synthetic biology: something old, something new. BioEssays 32:267–270

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • De Lorenzo V (2010b) Beware of metaphors. Chasses and orthogonality in synthetic biology. Bioeng Bugs 2:3–7

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Lorenzo V, Danchin A (2008) Synthetic biology: discovering new worlds and new words. EMBO Rep 9:822–827

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • DeLanda M (2011) Philosophy and simulation. The emergence of the synthetic reason. Continuum, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Delgado A, Funtowicz S, Dankel D (2012) Super-computers, evolution and the fabrication of life: how can science and technology studies (STS) contribute to more reflexive developments in systems and synthetic biology? Int J Soc Ecol Sustain Dev 3(2):12–24

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deplazes A (2009) Piecing together a puzzle. EMBO Rep 10:428–432

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Deplazes A, Huppenbauer M (2009) Synthetic organisms—living machines. Positioning the products of synthetic biology at the borderline between living and non-living matter. Syst Synth Biol 3:55–63

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dietrich JA et al (2009) A novel semi-biosyntehtic route for artemisin production using engineered substrate-promiscouos P450. ACS Chem Biol 4:261–267

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Dupre J (2003) Darwin’s legacy. What evolution means today. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Elowitz MB, Leibler S (2000) A synthetic oscillatory network of transcriptional regulators. Nature 403:335–338

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Endy D (2005) Foundations for engineering biology. Nature 438:449–453

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • ETC Group (2007) Extreme genetic engineering: An introduction to synthetic biology. http://www.etcgroup.org/node/602. Accessed 15 June 2012

  • Fox Keller E (2003) Making sense of life. Explaining biological development with models, metaphors and machines. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox Keller E (2007) The disappearance of function from ‘self-organising systems’. In: Boogerd FC, Bruggeman FJ, Hofmeyr J-HS, Westerhoff HV (eds) Systems biology philosophical foundations. Elsevier, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox Keller E (2009) What does synthetic biology have to do with biology? Biosocieties 4:291–302

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson DG et al (2010) Creation of a bacterial cell controlled by a chemically synthesized genome. Science 329:52–56

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Giuliani A et al (2011) What is artificial about life? Sci World J 11:670–673

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gramelsberger G (2012) Lifelike algorithms and cellular machines. Paper presented at the workshop: different forms of live. Comparative perspectives in systems and synthetic biology. Centre for Biotechnology, Society and Environment. Hamburg, January 2012

  • Güell M, van Noort V, Yus E, Chen WH, Leigh-Bell J, Michalodimitrakis K, Yamada T, Arumugam M, Doerks T, Kühner S, Rode M, Suyama M, Schmidt S, Gavin AC, Bork P, Serrano L (2009) Transcriptome complexity in a genome-reduced bacterium. Science 326(5957):1268–1271

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Heinemann M, Panke S (2006) Synthetic biology—putting engineering into biology. Bioinformatics 22(22):2790–2799

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Isaac F et al (2006) RNA synthetic biology. Nat Biotechnol 24:545–552

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jasanoff S (2007) Technologies of humility. Nature 450:33

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kaznessis YN (2009) Computational methods in synthetic biology. Biotechnol J 4:1392–1405

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Keasling J (2009) Synthetic biology in pursuit of inexpensive, effective, anti-malarial drugs. Biosocieties 4:275–282

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knight TF (2005) Engineering novel life. Mol Syst Biol doi:10.1038/msb4100028

  • Knorr-Cetina K (1999) Epistemic cultures: how the sciences make knowledge. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass

  • Kühner S, van Noort V, Betts MJ, Leo-Macias A, Batisse C, Rode M, Yamada T, Maier T, Bader S, Beltran-Alvarez P, Castaño-Diez D, Chen WH, Devos D, Güell M, Norambuena T, Racke I, Rybin V, Schmidt A, Yus E, Aebersold R, Herrmann R, Böttcher B, Frangakis AS, Russell RB, Serrano L, Bork P, Gavin AC (2009) Proteome organization in a genome-reduced bacterium. Science 326(5957):1235–1240

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kwok R (2010) Five hard truths for synthetic biology. Nature 463:288–290

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Law J (2002) Aircraft stories: decentering the object in technoscience. Duke University Press, Durham, London

  • MacDonald JT, Barner C, Kitney R, Freemont PS, Stan GB (2011) Computational design approaches and tools for synthetic biology. Integr Biol 3:97–108

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mackenzie A (2010) Design in synthetic biology. Biosocieties 5:180–198

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morange M (2009) A critical perspective on synthetic biology. Int J Philos Chem 15:21–30

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Moreno A (2007) A systemic approach to the origin of biological organization. In: Boogerd FC, Bruggeman FJ, Hofmeyr J-HS, Westerhoff HV (eds) Systems biology philosophical foundations. Elsevier, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  • Moya A et al (2009) Goethe’s dream. EMBO Rep 10:28–32

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mukherji S, Oudenaarden AV (2009) Synthetic biology: understanding biological design from synthetic circuits. Nat Rev Genet 10:859–871

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Noble D (2008) The music of life. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Malley M, Powell A, Davies J, Calvert J (2008) Knowledge making distintions in synthetic biology. BioEssays 30:57–65

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pennisi E (2012) 111 organizations call for synthetic biology moratorium. Science Insider 13 March 2012

  • Porcar M (2009) Beyond directed evolution: Darwinian selection as a tool for synthetic biology. Syst Synth Biol 4:1–6

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Porcar M, Danchin A, de Lorenzo V, Dos Santos VA, Krasnogor N, Rasmussen S, Moya A (2011) The ten grand challenges of synthetic life. Syst Synth Biol 5:1–5

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Potthast T (2009) Paradigm shifts versus fashion shifts? Systems and synthetic biology as new epsitemic entities in understanding and making life? EMBO Rep 19:42–45

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Purnick M, Weiss R (2009) The second wave of synthetic biology: from modules to systems. Nat Mol Cell Biol 10:410–422

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Rabinow P, Bennett G (2012) Designing human practices. An experiment with synthetic biology. Chicago University Press, Chicago

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rheinberger H (1997) Toward a history of epistemic things. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California

  • Rinaldi A (2012) To hype, or not to(o) hype. Communication of science is often tarnished by sensationalization, for which both scientists and the media are responsible. EMBO Rep 13:303–307

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Romanini DW, Peralta-Yahya P, Mondol V, Cornish VW (2012) A heritable recombination system for synthetic Darwinian evolution in yeast. ACS Synth Biol 1(12):602–609

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Schaerli Y, Isalan M (2013) Building synthetic gene circuits from combinatorial libraries: screening and selection strategies. Mol Biosyst. 2013 Jan 23. doi:10.1039/C2MB25483B

  • Schille P (2011) Bottom-up synthetic biology: engineers in a tinkerer’s world. Science 333:1252–1254

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schyfter P (2012) Standing reserves of function: a Hedeggerian reading of synthetic biology. Philos Technol 25:199–219

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schyfter P (2013) Properllers and promoters: emerging engineering knowledge in aeronautics and synthetic biology. Eng Stud. doi:10.1080/19378629.2012.762651

    Google Scholar 

  • Serrano L (2007) Synthetic biology: promises and challenges. Mol Syst Biol 3:1–5

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shetty RP et al (2008) Engineering BioBrick vectors from BioBrick parts. J Biol Eng 2:1–12

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Silver PA (2009) Making biology easier to engineer. Biosocieties 4:283–289

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smolke C, Silver P (2011) Informing biological design by integration of systems and synthetic biology. Cell 144:855–859

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Stirling A (2008) “Opening up and closing down” power, participation and pluralism in the social appraisal of technology. Sci Technol Human Values 33(2):262–294

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trogemann G (2010) Code and machine. In: Gleiniger A, Vrachliotis G (eds) Code: between operation and narration. Birkhauser, Basel

    Google Scholar 

  • Vincenti WG (1990) What engineers know and how they know it. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

    Google Scholar 

  • Yus E, Maier T, Michalodimitrakis K, van Noort V, Yamada T, Chen WH, Wodke JA, Güell M, Martínez S, Bourgeois R, Kühner S, Raineri E, Letunic I, Kalinina OV, Rode M, Herrmann R, Gutiérrez-Gallego R, Russell RB, Gavin AC, Bork P, Serrano L (2009) Impact of genome reduction on bacterial metabolism and its regulation. Science 326(5957):1263–1268

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The research and writing of this paper was financially supported by the Research Council of Norway (Project No 187969/O10). Thanks to Fern Wickson, Kjetil Rommetveit and Roger Strand for commenting on earlier versions of this manuscript. We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers whose comments have contributed to the substantial improvement of the paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, University of Bergen, PO Box 7800, 5020, Bergen, Norway

    Ana Delgado

  2. Cavanilles Institute, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Manuel Porcar

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

    Manuel Porcar

Authors
  1. Ana Delgado
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Manuel Porcar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ana Delgado.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Delgado, A., Porcar, M. Designing de novo: interdisciplinary debates in synthetic biology. Syst Synth Biol 7, 41–50 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11693-013-9106-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11693-013-9106-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation