Synthetic biology is a big issue in these days. Craig Venter, George Church, and Kristala Prather who are the most famous in biology field spoke about synthetic biology to a presidential commission(http://www.genomeweb.com//node/944858?hq_e=el&hq_m=762062&hq_l=4&hq_v=37b0a0cbd3). Then what is synthetic biology? Actually what I know is very little thing. So I make opportunity to know this concept.
Most of reference come from http://2009.igem.org/wiki/images/0/0d/Sins,_Ethics_and_Biology.pdf.
In 1912, the French chemist Stephane Leduc was first to use the term 'synthetic biology'.
In 1978, Szybalski and Skalka quote the term as closer meaning in today.
top-down approach
bottom-up approach
engineering principles considered in synthetic biology, In 2005 Drew Endy's paper are
standardization, decoupling, abstraction.
application of synthetic biology, example is artemisinin, a drug against malaria produced from plant, can be produced in genetically engineer yeasts.
Although there are big differences in synthetic biology(more normalized, standardized and concrete), I accept the concept of synthetic biology as one of the way to comprehend the biology. From the past scientist have tried to modify organism for interrogating biological knowledge and producing what they want more efficiently. Synthetic biology is a part of this movement.
Here are articles published from JCVI(J. Craig Venter Institute).
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1173759
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/329/5987/52
