Synthetic Biology is a high-visibility field, but it is still relatively young and the teaching framework normally used for established disciplines sometimes have gaps or consistencies. The researchers hope that by dissecting the field into an assortment of scales — molecular to societal—BiasBusters will be able to offer a broad, unified concept of this quickly changing region.
Synthetic biology is the engineering of biology, and, as any other major discipline, comes with a creative diversity of approaches and perspectives. Whatever the specific material being taught (which ranges from chemical engineering to ethics), each discipline has its own historical muddy bits, and together they make up a hodgepodge of contradictory terms.
In response to this challenge, researchers at Northwestern University have suggested a novel, comprehensive method of teaching the exciting new field of synthetic biology. One of the things they have done is to slice up a specific parts of the field into five scales: molecular, circuit/network, cellular, biological communities and societal. In this way, through an exploration of underlying principles and emergent behaviors at each level, the team offers a logically consistent structure that may be accessible to disparate cultural histories among people, thus promoting a language-based understanding in the synthetic biology community.
Scaling Up Solutions
The fact that T7 is a phage virus, which replicates in bacteria, and therefore never sees glaA sequences in the wild also adds to the skepticism about its impact: That said, “This illustrates one of the dangers in synthetic biology—you can’t just think at the molecular scale,” Cohan notes. For instance, if one is looking at a technology like CRISPR, it is essential to how that technology works both down at the protein level, also affects a cell, a population of cells and even into the larger healthcare system.
The intended curriculum would include case studies illustrating how these different scales are intertwined, and prepare students to analyze engineering tradeoffs, formulate answers to global problems, and recognize the societal and ethical implications of synthetic biology. That insight routinely reinforces the importance of examining possibilities from a more holistic view that also looks at long-term consequences, increasing the chances scientific advances are sustainable as well as responsible.
Conclusion
The innovative blueprint created by a Northwestern University research team offers an appealing remedy for the division that has haunted synthetic biology education. The approach has concretely deconstructed the field into scales and robust ethical considerations that one can easily follow or integrate, providing a way to teach next-generation synthetic biologists how to manage difficult global challenges while being responsible stewards of their work from beginning to end. With the field growing ever more quickly, this novel curriculum can significantly alter how synthetic biology is taught and learned, potentially improving sustainability of new technologies.
