Synthetic biology goes industrial

Synthetic biology applications in industrial microbiology

With the ability to perform a multitude of unique and complex chemical transformations, microorganisms have long been the “workhorses” of many industrial processes. However, in addition to exploiting the utility of naturally evolved phenotypes, the principles, strategies, and tools of synthetic biology are now being applied to facilitate the engineering of tailor-mademicrobes capable of tacklin...

Ethical Debates on Synthetic Biology

Background: As an emerging interdisciplinary area of science with a multitude of potential facilities and applications, synthetic biology integrates different disciplines with one another ranging from basic science to engineering. This interdisciplinary branch therefore encompasses sciences that require specific development and ethical approaches. Materials and Methods: Science management princ...

Biology Boom Goes Bust

Political and industrial factors-beyond the economic headwinds-may be causing public investment in biomedical research to slow down around the world.

Biology Goes Digital

Plant synthetic biology: a new platform for industrial biotechnology.

Thirty years after the production of the first generation of genetically modified plants we are now set to move into a new era of recombinant crop technology through the application of synthetic biology to engineer new and complex input and output traits. The use of synthetic biology technologies will represent more than incremental additions of transgenes, but rather the directed design of com...