BioBricks -The New Science of Synthetic Life

The devices of the future built by the scientists of tomorrow - there isn't any time travel involved, but with projects like artificial blood, cellular self-destruct mechanisms and bacterial assembly lines you'd be forgiven for thinking there was.

The iGEM (international genetically engineered machine) contest attracted the brightest from around the world to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but these weren't tenured professors or corporate research teams - these were students gathering to show off their projects in synthetic life.  Since these included bacteria which could detect and clean up mercury contamination, trainable E. Coli and a biological diode, every other student science fair in the world could consist of nothing but baking soda volcanoes and demonstrations of gravity and at the end of time they would still average out as "Awesome".

The heart of the project is the idea of BioBricks - standardised DNA sequences like those listed in the MIT Registry of Standard Biological Parts.  Many are worried about the possibility of a company being allowed to patent crucial genetic information by a judge who thinks gene sequencing is something his daughter does when she goes clothes shopping.  The Registry alternative is to follow the analogy of DNA as a computer program to its natural conclusion - open-source code.  In this way genetic engineers can develop and share documented blocks of code, avoiding unnecessary replication of effort and allowing rapid advancement in the field.

Yes, people (such as The Slate) have already leapt on this and shouted "OMG Bio!".  And yes, the scientists don't think much of those media scare tactics at all.

The iGEM contest encourages teams to freely use BioBricks from previous projects, and to contribute their own to the ever-growing library.   To say that the student entries are impressive would be to miss a chance to say "Fan-freaking-christ-on-a-molecularly-engineered-bike-tastic". The young field of synthetic biology has clearly been seized on by these new minds - and these projects should be shoved in the face of every slacker who thinks annihilating the Covenant Armada with a joypad is a good achievement over a college term.

We could honestly give over the next month of updates to descriptions of the projects interspersed with me going "Awesome!", but we can't, which is why I've sneaked as many tantalising phrases into this article as possible.  If you're not convinced that these guys are working on the future right now, perhaps I should point out that other offerings include a bacterial-based neural-network (which combines at least four different types of potentially world-ending kickass in one) and an ambitious team already looking down on their single-celled associates and working on a multicellular organism.

This is everything science education ever wanted to be, and it's been achieved without any cartoon characters or horribly unconvincing "Science Rules!" posters.  The simple fact is that science does kick ass - you don't need to wrap it up in PR goodness and pretend it's something else; just let people have the chance to play with the awesome potential, and you'll get new science and scientists into the bargain.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

iGEM http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/Main_Page
The Registry of Standard Biological Parts  http://parts.mit.edu/registry/index.php/Main_Page
The Slate comments http://www.slate.com/id/2178897/nav/tap3/