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Product development lifecycle: Like devices produced by other industries, synthetic biology products are developed through several iterations of a design-build-test cycle. In the design phase, computer models are used to generate DNA sequences and predict their properties. In the build phase, these DNA molecules are produced by manufacturing processes that assemble large DNA molecules out of chemically synthesized building blocks. Finally, in the testing phase, DNA is introduced in living cells and gene expression is measured. Experimental data is finally compared to simulation results to improve the design in the next iteration of this cycle.
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Since the description, in 2000, of two artificial gene networks, synthetic biology has emerged as a new engineering discipline that catalyzes a change of culture in the life sciences. Recombinant DNA can now be fabricated rather than cloned. Instead of focusing on the development of ad-hoc assembly strategies, molecular biologists can outsource the...
Citations
... This protocol can be divided into three main components: Library Design, Library Construction, and Library Screening analogous to the Design, Build, Test framework of engineering principles for synthetic biology (Peccoud, 2016;Opgenorth et al., 2019). The three main components can be further divided into individual steps as described in Figure 1. ...
Targeted mutagenesis of a promoter or gene is essential for attaining new functions in microbial and protein engineering efforts. In the burgeoning field of synthetic biology, heterologous genes are expressed in new host organisms. Similarly, natural or designed proteins are mutagenized at targeted positions and screened for gain-of-function mutations. Here, we describe methods to attain complete randomization or controlled mutations in promoters or genes. Combinatorial libraries of one hundred thousands to tens of millions of variants can be created using commercially synthesized oligonucleotides, simply by performing two rounds of polymerase chain reactions. With a suitably engineered reporter in a whole cell, these libraries can be screened rapidly by performing fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS). Within a few rounds of positive and negative sorting based on the response from the reporter, the library can rapidly converge to a few optimal or extremely rare variants with desired phenotypes. Library construction, transformation and sequence verification takes 6–9 days and requires only basic molecular biology lab experience. Screening the library by FACS takes 3–5 days and requires training for the specific cytometer used. Further steps after sorting, including colony picking, sequencing, verification, and characterization of individual clones may take longer, depending on number of clones and required experiments.
... However, this time environmental concerns have become the main drivers of change. Many of the most promising technologies in the bioeconomy, that apply engineering principles to life sciences, confront us with the possibility of a fifth industrial revolution (Peccoud, 2016). ...
The adoption of new bio-based technologies that reduce our reliance on fossil fuels is presented as a path to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while creating new business opportunities. Such a transition towards a bio-based economy will require substantial investments in technological innovations that will likely affect how value chains are structured and which actors benefit from this transformation. Yet, previous studies on the bioeconomy have largely ignored the relationship between the structure of value chains and the rate of technological innovation. In this article, we analyze the link between technological innovation, value chain structures, and welfare distribution in the transition to a bioeconomy. We find that an acceleration in the rate of bioeconomy innovation is associated with shorter and more vertically coordinated value chains, bigger firms with higher market shares, increasing knowledge-sharing among value chain members, and a leading role by firms with core research capabilities. Finally, we argue that while bio-based innovation can potentially achieve environmental sustainability, it creates risks for the weakest value chain actors. Thus, we propose some lines of thought regarding the potential distributional effects of bio-based innovation. From a policy perspective, this debate is relevant to safeguarding social sustainability in the transition to a bioeconomy.
... Due to their control over the global digital infrastructure and financial power, these companies benefit greatly from both, the legacy of the IT age and the technological convergence trends of the bio age. For the same reason, if not challenged by a 'movement of citizen scientists' (Peccoud, 2016) or forced to fragment, they may buy up innovative newcomers or push them out of the market. In fact, today's tech giants can be viewed as pioneers and pacemakers of the sectoral convergence. ...
... More generally, as argued by Kelly (1995), these systems will bring evolutionary parameters into play, allowing for self-growth and -adjustments rather than assembled products, solutions and entire 'technotopes'. Technologies such as algorithmic trust, digital me and biodegradable sensors may then become the "world economy reactor" (Vega-González, 2017, p. 215) of the next long cycle and trigger the 5 th IR toward cyber-biological systems (Peccoud, 2016). The advanced control shift, paralleled by the likewise advanced maturity phase of the scientific-cybernetic PP, can entail radical behavioral innovations of organizational type (cf. ...
A combined perspective of long economic cycles and very long secular cycles of production principles is proposed to anticipate the major socioeconomic implications of the emerging (bio)technological paradigm. The analysis identifies three distinct shifts that shape and promote socioeconomic development in the next five to six decades: the material shift toward renewable resources, the actual technological shift as a confluence of technological mega-trends, and the control shift toward new knowledge elites and self-regulating systems. The strongest creative and disruptive effects of the new (bio)technological leitmotif are shown to materialize at the overlap of the successive shifts. The results suggest revisiting some priority fields of the current bioeconomy and related policies and chart out key challenges beyond the strategic policy horizon of 2050.
... SynBio is a rapidly evolving, multidisciplinary and promising techno-science field which is anticipated to lead to the 5th industrial revolution (Peccoud 2016). Strikingly, the technologies have enormous potential to significantly alter the genomes of viruses, prokaryotes and eukaryotes. ...
Synthetic biology (SynBio) is an interdisciplinary field that has developed rapidly in the last two decades. It involves the design and construction of new biological systems and processes from standardized biological components, networks and synthetic pathways. The goal of Synbio is to create logical forms of cellular control. Biological systems and their parts can be redesigned to carry out completely new functions. SynBio is poised to greatly impact human health, the environment, biofuels and chemical production with huge economic benefits. SynBio presents opportunities for the highly agro-based African economies to overcome setbacks that threaten food security: The setbacks are brought about by climate change, land degradation, over-reliance on food imports, global competition, and water and energy security issues among others. With appropriate regulatory frameworks and systems in place, the benefits of harnessing SynBio to boost development in African economies by far potentially outweigh the risks. Countries that are already using GMOs such as South Africa and Kenya should find the application of SynBio seamless, as it would be a matter of expanding the already existing regulations and policies for GMO use.
... SB was born in the early 2000s and quickly grew as one of the most promising and challenging directions in science and technology. As it happens for AI and robotics, SB is often described as the science of the new century (Morange, 2009;Peccoud, 2016;Hockfield, 2019). Research in this field addresses issues as design, optimization and minimization, and spans from "rewiring" cell metabolism or regulatory networks to creating novel responsive molecular devices to control cell behavior, from grafting artificial sub-systems/modules into cells to extracting them for in vitro operations, and so on. ...
... When Synthetic Biology was started, a lot of attention was given to the data and material sharing policies [14]. These policies were revised several times to make them easier to understand. ...
Sharing research data is an integral part of the scientific publishing process. By sharing data authors enable their readers to use their results in a way that the textual description of the results does not allow by itself. In order to achieve this objective, data should be shared in a way that makes it as easy as possible for readers to import them in computer software where they can be viewed, manipulated, and analyzed. Many authors and reviewers seem to misunderstand the purpose of the data sharing policies developed by journals. Rather than being an administrative burden that authors should comply with to get published, the objective of these policies is to help authors maximize the impact of their work by allowing other members of the scientific community to build upon it. Authors and reviewers need to understand the purpose of data sharing policies to assist editors and publishers in their efforts to ensure that every article published complies with them.
... SynBio is a rapidly evolving, multidisciplinary and promising techno-science field. In particular it is anticipated that it may lead to the 5 th industrial revolution (Peccoud, 2016). ...
Synthetic biology (SynBio) is an interdisciplinary field that has developed rapidly in the last two decades. It involves the design and construction of new biological systems and processes from standardized biological components, networks and synthetic pathways. The goal of Synbio is to create logical forms of cellular control. Biological systems and their parts can be re-designed to carry out completely new functions. SynBio is poised to greatly impact human health, environment, biofuels and chemical production with huge economic benefits. SynBio presents opportunities for the highly agro-based African economies to overcome setbacks that threaten food security: The setbacks are brought about by climate change, land degradation, over-reliance on food imports, global competition, and water and energy security issues among others. With appropriate regulatory frameworks and systems in place, the benefits of harnessing SynBio to boost development in African economies by far potentially outweigh the risks. Countries that are already using GMOs such as South Africa and Kenya should find the application of SynBio seamless, as it would be a matter of expanding the already existing regulations and policies for GMO use.
... Synthetic biology [2,3] is an emerging field of research that combines elements of different sciences that rely on chemically synthesized DNA to create new biochemical systems or organisms with novel or enhanced characteristics. The capabilities of these technologies have increased by orders of magnitude over the past few years, and the costs associated with them have decreased by similar orders of magnitude. ...
The rapid pace of life sciences innovations and a growing list of nontraditional actors engaging in biological research make it challenging to develop appropriate policies to protect sensitive infra- structures. To address this chal- lenge, we developed a five-day awareness program for security professionals, including laboratory work, site visits, and lectures.
... Recent advances in the construction and characterization of DNA encoded synthetic circuits have enabled to boost the design-build-test engineering cycle applied to biological systems, in terms of time and economic resources. This process has led to the engineering of complex engineeringinspired information processing and control systems, as well as solutions to numerous problems in industrial biotechnology and medicine [1][2][3]. ...
Accurate predictive mathematical models are urgently needed in synthetic biology to support the bottom-up design of complex biological systems, minimizing trial-and-error approaches. The majority of models used so far adopt empirical Hill functions to describe activation and repression in exogenously-controlled inducible promoter systems. However, such equations may be poorly predictive in practical situations that are typical in bottom-up design, including changes in promoter copy number, regulatory protein level, and cell load. In this work, we derived novel mechanistic steady-state models of the lux inducible system, used as case study, relying on different assumptions on regulatory protein (LuxR) and cognate promoter (Plux) concentrations, inducer-protein complex formation, and resource usage limitation. We demonstrated that a change in the considered model assumptions can significantly affect circuit output, and preliminary experimental data are in accordance with the simulated activation curves. We finally showed that the models are identifiable a priori (in the analytically tractable cases) and a posteriori, and we determined the specific experiments needed to parametrize them. Although a larger-scale experimental validation is required, in the future the reported models may support synthetic circuits output prediction in practical situations with unprecedented details.
... Беспрецедентный уровень сложности этих биологических систем отличает их от киберфизических систем. Ж. Пекку предлагает именовать такие системы кибербиологическими [Peccoud 2016]. ...
In the article, such categories as cyber-physical, cyber-biological and artificial cognitive systems (artificial intelligence) are analyzed in order to determine their characteristics important for legal science and practice. Different ways of defining the above mentioned concepts are examined. It is determined that a cyber-physical system includes a variety of technical means and is not easily placed within legal framework. Incorporation of this term in legal regulations through the description of its key characteristics is recommended. A cyber-biological system has the same structure as a cyber-physical system except that the physical component is replaced by biological one. It is argued that the relevance of the analysis of cyber-biological systems will depend on further scientific achievements in this area. The crucial property of the artificial cognitive system (artificial intelligence) is the ability to act independently and rationally. The authors conclude that the technical means covered by cyber-physical and cyber-biological systems acquire autonomy only if they have artificial intelligence. Finally, it is stated that the scope of social relations arising in the new reality will include only the technical means (objects regardless of their nature: physical, biological or virtual) able to perform legally significant actions independent from an individual person.
