Team:Austin UTexas/Practices
Human Practices
Synthetic biology has numerous potential applications in fields such as energy and medicine. In order for a genetically enhanced organism to perform its desired function reliably, the relevant genes must persist through multiple generations. If we can identify DNA sequence motifs that lead to genetic instability, we can develop ways to avoid them and consequently improve stability. By improving stabile devices we can also help biosynthetic companies to make safer and help save cost economically on their product. This issue of stability in devices on its own will help move the synthetic biology field forward, which will then inturn help with society.
Our project was designed to maintain the genetic stability of our genetically engineered fluorescence protein. We believe that our work will impact the medicine industry by creating genetic sequences that have the ability to control gene expression and not encounter a significant amount of mutants in its sequence, so that this may reduce the cost of creating synthetic medicine in the research field. Our project can expand to the medicine field, where they can create stable proteins required for the specific synthetic medicine. According to The School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Trinity College and University of Dublin, protein scientists wind up in situations where fragments of a certain protein molecule exhibit higher instability than the remaining part, which can be caused by various reasons. While forming the basic amino acid structures needed to create insulin, they encountered stability issues with amino acid cysteine. Since the amino acid cysteine was encountering multiple mutations, it was difficult for the scientists to produce their final product, insulin. In these types of situations, our project could be a key resource for how to maintain the genetic stability within various proteins.
The medicine industry is not the only industry that needs stable genes. For instance, the continued depletion of nonrenewable energy sources has created a demand for novel energy sources. While synthetic biology offers one possible solution, its viability is hindered as a result of genetic instability. Since the evolutionary process continues even after an organism is genetically engineered to produce biofuel precursors, the genetic device is at risk. Producing the necessary molecules requires energy and carbon from the cells which can diminish a cell’s fitness, breaking the genetic circuit1. However, development of a more stable genetic device could lead to a robust method of biofuel production and help alleviate the fuel crisis.
By creating and using these genetically stable circuits, there are many companies that save cost, time, and valuable money when developing stable synthetic products. For example, biological synthetic companies like Amyris spend $33,202,000 dollars to make their biosynthetic models. This is a substantial amount of money. Companies invest millions on genetic devises to make their products. So if these genetic devices are unstable then the company could potentially lose a lot of money. So by making more stable devices this could potentially alleviate extra cost deficits. Along with big companies, research labs working in this field could be saving time, energy and money if there devices lasted a longer time. By making synthetic biology more cost effective and efficient makes expansion in efforts of using synthetic biology to help society greater.
Even though genes are evolving through mutations, it is interesting that the UT IGEM team has developed a method to build stable genetic circuits, which do not allow for many mutations to take place in the sequence. This project can be taken to a global level, where the production of many biosynthetic devices/ products can be improved dramatically, efficiently, and cost effectively. Arguably, using small biological system to create a useful product is not only fast but also not as costly when compared to machine manufacturing . So when it comes to fixing 3rd world problem in a cost effective and timely manner, synthetic biology can be the answer. However, synthetic biology can only be helpful if the devices we make can perform for a long period of time. So this issue of stability in synthetic biology needs to be addressed and solved for the sake of humanity and the future of science.
Works Cited:
Ferry, Michael S., Jeff Hasty, and Natalie A. Cookson. "Synthetic biology approaches to biofuel production." Biofuels 3.1 (2012): 9-12.
Kamionka, Mariusz. "Engineering of therapeutic proteins production in Escherichia coli." Current pharmaceutical biotechnology 12.2 (2011): 268.
Amyris. 2014 Annual Report, December 31st, 2014. Web. September 10th, 2015.
"Gene Therapy." Fatbuster: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The IGEM Foundation. Web. 10 Sept. 2015.