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Team:UCL/Project/Xenobiology
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<h3 class="summaryTitle"> <center> The ultimate biosafety tool </center> </h3> | <h3 class="summaryTitle"> <center> The ultimate biosafety tool </center> </h3> | ||
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| - | (Xenosummary work in progress)<br> | + | (Xenosummary work in progress)<br> |
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<!--See paper, emails in which you explained it and diary. write as google doc than transfer here. passionate and let proofread --> <br> | <!--See paper, emails in which you explained it and diary. write as google doc than transfer here. passionate and let proofread --> <br> | ||
| - | “Any technological advance can be dangerous. Fire was dangerous from the start, and so (even more so) was speech - and both are still dangerous to this day - but human beings would not be human without them.” - Isaac Asimov | + | <i>“Any technological advance can be dangerous. Fire was dangerous from the start, and so (even more so) was speech - and both are still dangerous to this day - but human beings would not be human without them.” - Isaac Asimov</i> |
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Since the early days of genetic engineering, our ability to manipulate living organisms had to face the invevitable risks of any new technology. Each advantage brought by technology is tightly linked to its risks, many of which we cannot predict. | Since the early days of genetic engineering, our ability to manipulate living organisms had to face the invevitable risks of any new technology. Each advantage brought by technology is tightly linked to its risks, many of which we cannot predict. | ||
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Revision as of 13:34, 12 October 2014
The ultimate biosafety tool
(Xenosummary work in progress)
“Any technological advance can be dangerous. Fire was dangerous from the start, and so (even more so) was speech - and both are still dangerous to this day - but human beings would not be human without them.” - Isaac Asimov
Since the early days of genetic engineering, our ability to manipulate living organisms had to face the invevitable risks of any new technology. Each advantage brought by technology is tightly linked to its risks, many of which we cannot predict.
Since we cannot predict all the possible dangers of a new technology, as scientist, we have the responsibility to implement all the safety measures to cover the known risk and speculate on the level of safety we want to achieve in order to moderate the unknown risks.
The Asilomar conference first addressed these concerns, and set limits to the work of scientists. Research in Synthetic Biology has brought these concerns to a new level: as our tinkering with Biology increases, the unknowns of this technology expand and oblige us to further reflect on the safety measures we need to implement.
Biosafety strategies have so far explored biology to implement clever mechanisms to control this technology. They investigated various strategies that allow to kill bacteria when needed or that hinder genetic information to spread among different organisms.
Our biosafety strategy is exploring the regions outside of Biology, with the ultimate goal of bringing Biology to a parallel domain where it does not interact with our own one. Why tinkering with our same Biology when we can create a new on, at the same time biology and technology, that we can control at a much higher level?
Xenobiology is the part of synthetic biology that implements the term "synthetic" by creating organisms that are unable to survive in the natural environment and necessitate an artificial intervention from man to exist. Xeno definition...
Our bacteria will have their biochemistry depend on a synthetic cofactor - not existing in nature - that derives from the azo dyes they break down, hence only survive in azo dyed water which can be found near azo dyes factories. We merge
Xenobiology becomes therefore the ultimate biosafety tool because...
Biosafety in Synthetic Biology
The wide use of genetically modified organisms causes concerns on how they will interact in the natural environment. In particular could the genetically modiefied microbes escape our constrains, and outcompete the organisms found in the natural ecosystem? Could the DNA we inserted into a specific bacteria be transmitted, with unknown spread of information?
Biological vs. Xenobiological strategies
Biological strategies
Xenobiological strategies
A safety mechanism embedded into the system on three different levelsReference:
- Wright, O., Stan, G.-B., and Ellis, T. (2013). Building-in biosafety for synthetic biology. (Review) Microbiology, 159, 1221-1235. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23519158
- Okada, K., Minehira, M., and Zhu, X. (1997). The ispB gene encoding octaprenyl diphosphate synthase is essential for growth of Escherichia coli. Journal of Bacteriology, 179, 3058–3060. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9139929
- Søballe, B. , Poole, K. R. (1999). Microbial ubiquinones: multiple roles in respiration, gene regulation and oxidative stress management. (Review) Microbiology, 145, 1817-1830. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10463148
- Schmidt, M (2010). Xenobiology: A new form of life as the ultimate biosafety tool Bioessays, 32, 322-331. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2909387/
- Malyshev, D.A., Dhami, K., Lavergne, T. et al. (2014). A semi-synthetic organism with an expanded genetic alphabet Nature, 509, 385-388. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v509/n7500/full/nature13314.html
