Weekly Mashup #17

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!

What you should Know if you are Planning to Invest in a Synthetic Biology Company

Following last week’s SynbioBeta blogpost by Jenny Rooke on the limits of investing in synthetic biology startups, this week an article by Jamie Bacher, founder and CEO of Pareto Biotechnologies, gives five advices for synthetic biology investors. In a nutshell, in addition to analyzing each company’s specific technical accomplishments, he recommends investors to look closely at the founding team members and their background, the history of the company, the current investors and their field of expertise, the business model and opportunities for commercial product development.

India Clearing Limited GM Crop Field Trials

India’s environment minister Veerappa Moily recently approved limited field trials for genetically modified crops. The crops include wheat, maize, cotton, castor, and rice. This approval allows those trials cleared last year by India’s Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) to be conducted in states which will allow them. The previous minister had withheld approval, citing considerations by the Indian Supreme Court. It is now expected that the environmental and agricultural ministries will file an affidavit with the Court in support of these and further GM crop trials.

Opinions and News on the Possible Approval of Genetic Engineering in Humans

Last week the FDA held a public meeting to discuss the possibility of approving genetic engineering experiments in humans. This has received considerable press coverage, and in case you want to get more information on the subject, NBC news had an interesting article about it. On the other side of the Atlantic, the UK just published drafted regulations which are currently under consultation by the Department of Health to allow the technique currently being evaluated by the FDA to be used in Britain as early as the end of 2014. This sets up Britain to be potentially the first country in the world using this technique. Such a technique, though never before tested in humans, has great potential and could enable women with severe mitochondrial defects to deliver healthy children who would, even after a mitochondrial replacement, still carry as much genetic information from the mother as from the father.

Synthetic Biology in the News

Hypermogen, a company working on technology foresights, published a set of icons representing what in their opinion are the most interesting future trends. Amongst them is the synthetic biology icon, a goat’s head on a spider’s body…

Following up to previous articles on the possibilities of using publicly available genomic data for terrorist purposes, an article in The Conversation highlights the perceived lack of external regulation in synthetic biology.

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

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