2003 Synthetic Biology study

Abstract

Biology is a technology for processing information, materials, and energy. As a technology platform, biological systems provide access to artifacts and processes across a range of scales (e.g., the ribosome is a programmable nanoassembler, a bamboo shoot can grow 12” per day). Biology also forms the basis for human welfare (e.g., modest amounts of memory and logic, implemented as genetically encoded systems,would directly impact biological research and medicine). However, our ability to deploy biology as a technology and to interact intentionally with the living world is now limited; the charge to our study was to begin to specify enabling technologies that, if developed, would provide a general foundation for the engineering of biology and make routine the creation of synthetic biological systems that behave as predicted.