Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology

Overview

Biotechnology partners with biology to create products and services, like engineering skin microbes to fight cancer or brewing medicines from yeast. This industry, already 5 percent of US GDP, is poised for significant growth. Synthetic biology, a subset of biotechnology focusing on enhancing living systems, relies on DNA sequencing and synthesis. DNA sequencers are machines that read or decode specific DNA molecules, while synthesizers write user-specifi ed sequences of DNA. Rapid progress in these technologies is driving innovation and expanding biotechnology’s potential applications.

Biology as a manufacturing process is distributed; leaves do not come from a central production facility but rather grow on trees everywhere. However, commercial biotechnology has become centralized and capital intensive. This contrast suggests a potential paradigm shift toward a more distributed approach in biotechnology, aligning it more closely with nature’s decentralized production model.

Synthetic biology merges biology, engineering, and computer science to modify and create living systems, developing novel biological functions served by amino acids, proteins, and cells not found in nature. This fi eld creates reusable biological “parts,” streamlining design processes and reducing the need to start from scratch, thus advancing biotechnology’s capabilities and efficiency.

Synthetic biology has applications in medicine, agriculture, manufacturing, and sustainability. DNA and RNA synthesis underlies all mRNA vaccines, including those for COVID-19. Synthetic biology can also cultivate drought-resistant crops and enable cells to be programmed to manufacture medicines or fuel on an agile, distributed basis.

Key Developments 

Distributed biomanufacturing This offers unprecedented production flexibility in both location and timing. Fermentation production sites can be established anywhere with access to sugar and electricity. This approach enables swift responses to sudden demands like disease outbreaks requiring specific medications. Such adaptability revolutionizes manufacturing, making it more efficient and responsive to urgent needs. 

Biology as a general-purpose technology Currently, biotechnology is used to make medicines, foods, and a narrow range of sustainable materials. But anything whose synthesis can be encoded in DNA could be grown. For example, some bacteria are capable of growing arrays of tiny magnets, and select sea sponges grow glass filaments similar to human-made fiber-optic cables. These and other examples suggest the potential for biology to be recognized as a general-purpose technology that could become the foundation of a more resilient manufacturing base. 

Biological large language models (BioLLMs) Large language models (LLMs), which are a form of artificial intelligence, have emerged that are being trained on natural DNA, RNA, and protein sequences. Called BioLLMs, they can generate new biologically significant sequences that are helpful points of departure for designing useful proteins.

Over the Horizon

To fully realize biology as a technology, improving biotechnology methods is essential. Advancing tools for measuring, modeling, and creating with biology offers a chance for global leadership. Similarly, streamlining and coordinating biotechnology workflows and commercialization can cement this position. Identifying gaps in national portfolios, such as the need for standards and reference materials to support a networked bioeconomy, is critical for strategic development.

The 2022 US federal strategic vision for biotechnology, including various initiatives and commissions, primarily focuses on applications and outcomes. However, these initiatives also provide opportunities to support foundational bioengineering research. Active multilateral efforts are needed to seize these chances through advice and input.

“Patient capital,” both private and public, is crucial for foundational research, since many biotechnologies have long development timelines. Such long-term capital must be sustained in times of ebb and flow in the pace of scientific advancement. For example, although mRNA vaccines gained widespread public attention in 2021, their history began thirty years ago.

From a strategic perspective, four areas of significant consequence and opportunity need to be tracked: (1) progress toward constructing life from scratch (e.g., building a cell); (2) advances in electrobiosynthesis (i.e., growing biomass starting from renewable electricity and atmospheric carbon); (3) advances in next-generation DNA synthesis; and (4) progress toward profitability (i.e., when synthetic biology companies realize and sustain significant profits).