synthetic biology - a science which marries disciplines such as biotechnology, molecular biology and evolutionary biology.

 

Synthetic biology offers hope with incurables

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/health/news/article.cfm?c_id=204&objectid=11367827

 

That sounds really exciting.

I could imagine huge fortunes could be made from exploring this technology.

Edited December 3, 201411 yr by Robittybob1

synthetic biology = genetic engineering. Same thing, different name

synthetic biology = genetic engineering. Same thing, different name

 

Not quite. They are experimenting with different molecular structures to build analogues of DNA and RNA. (Although that is a particularly uninformative article.)

 

Not quite. They are experimenting with different molecular structures to build analogues of DNA and RNA. (Although that is a particularly uninformative article.)

 

That is not typically what is referred to as "synthetic biology".

Well when I quoted the article I didn't think it referred to genetic engineering. I thought it was more like non living biochemical reactions.

Here are a couple of things with a bit more information (this news seems to have triggered some spectacularly unhelpful science journalism - even by the standards of science journalism).

http://www.mrc.ac.uk/news-events/news/world-s-first-artificial-enzymes-created-using-synthetic-biology/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2909387/

Boggles the mind to imagine everything we could do with different XNA's.

Boggles the mind to imagine everything we could do with different XNA's.

A lot of effort has gone into IT over the last 50 years now could be the era of synthetic biology. A potentially rewarding and exciting career path for young people.