When biology became engineering: Adopting standards for living systems

Authors

  • Victor de Lorenzo National Centre for Biotechnology (Madrid, Spain).

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.11.15975

Keywords:

synthetic biology, standards, repressilator, repository, orthogonality

Abstract

For decades, molecular biologists have been removing or inserting genes into all kinds of organisms with biotechnological intent or simply to generate fundamental knowledge. Synthetic biology (SynBio) goes one step further by incorporating conceptual frameworks from computing, electronics, and industrial design. This change makes it possible to conceive the creation of complex biological objects that were previously considered too difficult to assemble. To do this, the stages of any industrial production process must be adopted: design, construction of the components, assembly, and final manufacture. This objective requires standardisation of the physical and functional formats of the components involved, DNA assembly methods, activity measurements, and descriptive languages.

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Author Biography

Victor de Lorenzo, National Centre for Biotechnology (Madrid, Spain).

Research Professor for the Spanish National Research Council at the National Centre for Biotechnology in Madrid (Spain). His interests focus on the biology and biotechnological potential of environmental bacteria, with an emphasis on the transcriptional regulation of biodegradation pathways for xenobiotic compounds and the development of molecular tools to programme microorganisms as industrial catalysts. More recently, his work has been exploring the interface between synthetic biology and environmental microbiology. 

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Published

2021-01-21

How to Cite

de Lorenzo, V. (2021). When biology became engineering: Adopting standards for living systems. Metode Science Studies Journal, (11), 67–73. https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.11.15975
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Issue

Science's structures (2021)

Section

Standards. The building blocks of complexity

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