synthetic biology Flashcards
Sharma et al. 2022
people compare synthetic biology interventions to playing god
Piaggo et al. 2017
world is in biodiversity crisis. not slowing.
synthetic biology brought us genome editing.
some w/i conservation community are wary of applying synthetic biology in attempts to change or repair biodiversity crises.
2 main areas of SB: genome redesign for new and desired traits. and faster and more reliable fabrication techniques for parts and systems that don’t exist in natural world.
Niehl et al. 2018
dsRNA prevents production of the virus in cells by triggering an RNA interruption. E.g. tobacco mosaic virus TMV which can infect tobacco, potatoes, etc.
Coleman & Goold 2019
Kelp forest conservation. can edit genome to make it more tolerale to changing environment e.g. raising temperatures, increase disease resistance, change palatability to browsers, improve seed viability, pollution tolerance.
Can also manipulate organisms that share ecosystem with it e.g. urchins to stop eating kelp.
Powell et al. 2019
blight tolerant american chestnut trees. use gene editing to insert wheat oxalate oxidase gene to create transgenic american chestnut trees. protect them from fungal pathogen introduced from Asia.
Degenhardt et al. 2009
restoring maize root signal that attracts insect-killing nemaotes to kill major pest = western corn rootworm (WCR). Insert gene from oregano to make maize emit chemical signal that attracts nematodes that eat the WCR.
Kent et al. 2021
can cause targeted changes in crop genomes w/o undertaking direct genome editing themselves i.e. use targeted biological agents to enter the plants genome and make the changes required e.g. pollen from modified corn plant spreads to other corn plants and so on and so forth. May be possible in other plants too.
Synthetic biology in US was estimated to grow to 38.7$ billion USD by 2020.
advantages of synthetic biology and citations
the rest of the world is using it anyway, we might as well too (Piaggo et al. 2017)
more environmentally friendly than pesticides (Niehl et al. 2018 - dsRNA to interrupt virus like TMV tobacco mosaic virus; Degenhardt et al. 2009 - using gene editing for chemical signals in maize to attract nematodes to eat WCR western corn rootworm.
can target one single organism type rather than entire ecosystem (Coleman and Goold 2019 - target kelp)
evolutionary stable - won’t develop pathogen resistance (Powell et al. 2019 - oxalate oxidase i.e. american chestnut and fungal pathogen can coexist b/c oxalate oxidase doesn’t kill pathogen but just protects tree from it; Degenhardt et al. 2009 - same but instead think of pesticides developing resistance used on maize for the western corn rootworm WCR.)
avoids issues that come with hybridisation (Powell et al. 2019- american chestnut blight; ?)
technology is already in place from other industries that have a lot of money (Piaggo et al. 2017; Kent et al. 2021)
effective (Powell et al. 2019; Degenhardt et al. 2009 maize)
disadvantages of synthetic biology and citations
expensive (Niehl et al. 2018 - dsRNA is expensive apparently; powell et al. 2019 - requires long term research for american chestnut tree. trees live long
time consuming (powell et al. 2019 - american chestnut trees live long time. will take many generations and dedication to see results.
public is wary - (Sharma et al. 2022 - “playing God”; Powell et al. 2019 - ppl seem more supportive if species is on brink of extinction)
big consequences if mistake is made (Coleman and Goold 2019 discuss increased risk of extinction of kelp and/or what if unplanned gene flow into wild populations of same lineage. also potential environmental damage to greater ecosystem.
risk of creating undesirable traits (issue raised by Degenhardt et al. 2009 - WCR nematodes; and Coleman and Goold 2019 in kelp chat)
other thoughts: indigenous inclusion ? is this another type of imperialism?
