From Biology to Technology

Synbio Mashup #15

The Synthetic Biology Mashup is a weekly review of articles and news related to synthetic biology and metabolic engineering. While we share most of this on our twitter feed, if you need to catch up on this week’s news just read ahead!

E. coli Producing Shikimic acid in High Concentrations

In a research published this week in Microbial Cell Factories, scientists from Guangzhou, China, engineered an E. coli strain to produce shikimic acid (SA) using triclosan-induced chromosomal evolution. Guangzhou scientists, further enhanced SA production by increasing NADPH availability. SA is normally produced from the seeds of Chinese star anise and is a key intermediate for the synthesis of anti-influenza drugs. However, plants cannot deliver a stable supply of SA and previous attempt at creating engineered microbial strain for SA production were plasmid-based and suffered from genetic instability

Ambitious New French Pharmaceutical Scheme to Cooperate with the Cuban Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

French Venture Capital firm Truffle Capital announced this week the creation of a new pharmaceutical company, ABIVAX, in a first-of-a-kind collaboration with the Cuban Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB). ABIVAX aims to become a world leader in the development of vaccines and antiviral drugs, by combining the expertise provided by the Cuba partner with the technologies and product portfolios of three French biotech companies financed by Truffle (Wittycell, Splicos and Zophis). Their first target is the development of a therapeutic vaccine for Hepatitis B in Phase IIb of clinical trials, a novel anti-viral drug for AIDS scheduled to enter clinical trials in Q1 2014, and a Human Papilloma Virus therapeutic vaccine expected to enter into a Phase I clinical trial in 2015.

MIT Students Hacking Reader’s Brain by Prototyping Books Sharing Protagonist’s Feelings

Students from the MIT class “Science Fiction to Science Fabrication” created a wearable book that uses cheap technology and brain tricks to transmit protagonist’s feelings to the reader. The interesting project at the interface with art is called Sensory Fiction. The first prototype is a vest that plugs into Tiptee’s book “The girl that was plugged in” and changes shape and temperature depending on the page the reader is at.

Washington State University Business Orientated Genetic Engineering Research

Following the recent article in Nature about the shift of Synthetic Biology research towards fine chemicals for feasibility and economic reasons, the Seattle Times had a close look at the research being currently undertaken at WSU’s Institute of Biological Chemistry. Led by Norman Lewis, the institute is working on the production of 2-phenylethanol, the compound that gives roses their characteristic aroma, by genetically engineering poplar trees. The compound can also be further processed to produce components of jet fuel and there are plans to commercialize the product through their spin-off company, Elasid. Interestingly, the institute is very much working on scaling up their innovations and is now doing open field tests with over 12,000 trees spread over 11 acres. This is the biggest ongoing field test of genetically engineered trees in the US — and perhaps the world.

Synthetic Biology in the News

A French article summarising the current state of synthetic biology and its future directions.

An interesting article about the variety of participants at the Berkeley BioLabs space, and by extension to the overall growing DIYbio movement.

An interview with Camille Delebecque, Founder of Synbio Consulting.

That’s it for this week’s Synthetic Biology Mashup! A suggestion or a question? Shoot us an email!

Synbio Mashup #14

The Synthetic Biology Mashup is a weekly review of articles and news related to synthetic biology and metabolic engineering. While we share most of this on our twitter feed, if you need to catch up on this week’s news just read ahead!

From Natural Gas to Liquid Fuel Using Metabolic Engineering

In an article published this week in Science magazine, Rice University synthetic biologist Ramon Gonzalez and Robert Conrado, director and former senior fellow of the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) discuss the critical steps that the U.S. should take in order to convert its abundant supply of natural gas into liquid transportation fuel. Gonzalez has developed a 3-year research program called “Reducing Emissions Using Methanotrophic Organisms for Transportation Energy” (REMOTE), which aims at using bioconversion technologies and synthetic biology to make “greener” fuel from the methane supply.

Mechanism of Cas9 Enzyme Activity Uncovered

The result of a collaboration between teams from Berkeley and Columbia Universities was published in Nature this week in an article demonstrating how the bacterial enzyme Cas9 finds specific DNA cleavage sites. Cas9 is able to target and cut DNA sequences guided by RNA during viral infections and can also induce the site-specific double stranded breaks in eukaryotic cells (CRISPR-Cas9 system). The study shows that both the binding and the catalytic activities of CAS9 require Protospacer Adjacent Motif (PAM). The CRISPR-Cas9 system has become a prominent genetic engineering tool and better understanding Cas9 mechanism should help fine-tune targeting specificity.

NASA new Synthetic Biology Initiative to focus to terraformation

The idea of sending engineered bacteria into space has become very popular lately, and is also part of Craig Venter’s latest research directions. Last Tuesday, NASA presented the latest developments of its new project, called Synthetic Biology Initiative, with the goal to design cyanobacteria that would be able to convert the toxic atmosphere of other planets in our solar system into breathable air using synthetic biology tools. The idea behind this terraformation project is to mimic the “Great Oxidation Event” that happen on Earth 2.45 billion years ago which created our breathable atmosphere following a cyanobacterial bloom.

That’s it for this week’s Synthetic Biology Mashup! A suggestion or a question? Shoot us an email!

Synbio MashUp #13

The Synthetic Biology Mashup is a weekly review of articles and news related to synthetic biology and metabolic engineering. While we share most of this on our twitter feed, if you need to catch up on this week’s news just read ahead!

Three New Synthetic Biology Research Centres to Open in the UK

Three new synthetic biology research centres are set to open in the UK in Bristol (BrisSynBio), Nottingham (SBRC Nottingham) and through a Cambridge/Norwich partnership (OpenPlant), after receiving over £40 million in funding from the BBSRC and the EPSRC. BrisSynBio will be led by Prof Dek Woolfson, and its research will focus on disease treatments. SBRC Nottingham will be led by Prof Nigel Minton, and it will aim to provide sustainable routes to producing important chemicals. OpenPlant will be led by Prof David Baulcombe, Dr Jim Haseloff, Prof Dale Sanders and Prof Anne Osbourn and will try to develop an open source spirit within the synthetic biology research of plants, using John Innes Foundation’s plant expertise, and Cambridge’s synthetic biology resources.

For the last year, the UK has been pushing and investing heavily in Synthetic Biology, with a dedicated roadmap, and the announcement last July of the creation of a dedicated center around Imperial College London.

Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts, said: “Synthetic biology is one of the most promising areas of modern science, which is why we have identified it as one of the eight great British technologies of the future. Synthetic biology has the potential to drive economic growth but still remains relatively untapped and these new centres will ensure that the UK is at the forefront when it comes to commercialising these new technologies.”

First Monkeys with Targeted Mutations Born in China

Researchers at Nanjing Medical University and Yunnan Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research in Kunming in China have created two genetically modified monkeys with targeted mutations in three genes associated with human disorders using the CRISPR/Cas9 system. The gene editing technique took over Synthetic Biology by storm those past few years. For many disorders non-human primate models are important but still very rare. Mice have been dominating due, in part, to their quick reproduction cycle. With the higher specificity and fidelity now made available by the CRISPR/Cas9 system, more interesting alternatives are becoming a possibility. While the monkeys are still too young to draw any definitive conclusions about the effect of the mutations reported in this study, altering the genetic material of a species as close to human is promising for the targeted therapy of human genetic diseases.

Breakthrough in stem cell technology: easier and quicker protocol to trigger pluripotency

This week we noticed the publication of two back-to-back paper in Nature detailing a new protocol to trigger conversion of somatic cells into pluripotency and its application. The stimulus-triggered technique is deemed as revolutionary, being much quicker and easier. The protocol consisting in immersing the cells into mildly acidic solutions was demonstrated in a series of elegant experiments. If this new technique can be replicated in human tissue, it could lead to a major breakthrough in regenerative medicine.

Less is Better? Synthetic Biology Companies Lean Towards Fine Chemicals

This week, Nature published an interesting article discussing the shift of synthetic biology focus from biofuels and commodity chemicals towards finer chemicals, such as food and fragrance ingredients. The reasons for this are higher prices, smaller volumes, quicker and cheaper development time in part due to simpler regulation landscapes. Evolva, Solazyme and Allylix are just a few of the companies working on the production of fine chemicals using synthetic biology.

New Algorithm to Predict Effect of Gene Overexpression on Cell Toxicity

Researchers from Tel Aviv University and from the Weizmann Institute of Science, have developed a computer algorithm named Expression Dependent Gene Effects (EDGE) that predicts which metabolic genes are toxic to cells when overexpressed. This is normally done by trial and error, and can be time and money consuming. The program seems to have an interesting predictability power in E. coli, but it also seems to provide interesting insights in humans. Therefore, while initially developed for metabolic engineering and synthetic biology, it could find potential applications in the determination of genes linked to human pathologies.

Indie Rock band new music video inspired by DIYbio

Indie rock band Architecture in Helsinki collaborated with Lucy McRae, a “body architect”, and Rachel Wingfield, a “spatial experimenter” to produce their new music video “Biological Bakery”. The short film is said to be inspired by synthetic biology and the DIYbio movement. While this video is much more science fiction than documentary, it showcases once more that synthetic biology is slowly making its way onto the public stage

That’s it for this week’s Synthetic Biology Mashup! A suggestion or a question? Shoot us an email!