iGEM and David Appleyard (flickr.com/igemhq)
There’s lots to love and lots to chew on in this article by Jon Mooallem on synbio in the Sunday NYT mag. Mooallem captures science and spirit, covering the 2009 International Genetically Engineering Machine Competition by following an enthusiastic but under-resourced team of bioengineers at the City College of San Fransisco. That’s right: part-time students at a two-year community college compete with teams from the top research institutions on the planet.
Unfortunately, the CCSF folks can’t get their bacterial battery to work, but the enthusiasm on the razor’s edge of science is as contagious as some of the microbes they’re working with.
Three points. First, undergrads are building these biomachines, crafting new BioBricks of DNA that enable microorganisms to, for instances, change color in the presence of specific environmental toxins. And they are not conducting pure basic research; they are organizing information about to synthesize the basic functions of small life forms—for fun and competition. Drew Endy, the master builder and noted seer of the field, puts it like this:
We have now, in a bottom-up, grass-roots fashion, de facto installed a genetic-engineering curriculum for the future of our field in 120 schools worldwide.
Second, top-flight high schools can’t be that far down the ladder.
Third, the folks at CCSF prove that anyone can get into this, and as other journalists have noted, synbio is coming into the realm of computer programming, a high-powered hobby in which nerdy enthusiasts can do significant work in their own living rooms.