Country Profile

Comparison

Brazil

Argentina

Chile

Colombia

Peru

Uruguay

SynBio Map Entries of South American Countries

SynBio Map identifies and locates companies, universities, research institutions, laboratories and other centers across the globe that are active in synthetic biology research. It is a good tool to compare the trend of synthetic biology around the world.

United States has the greater numbers of entries in SynBio map, having 395 entries by 2014. Otherwise, South America countries together have only 3, all situated in Brazil. This indicates that the United States is an important player on the global synthetic biology stage - "Synthetic biology project", and that South America is still a beginner.

Participation in iGEM Competition

Teams all around the world have participated in the international Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. In this competition, teams apply synthetic biology methods to develop their projects. Because iGEM competition and synthetic biology are closely related, we have searched for information on the number of teams that took part from South America to compare.

According to the numbers of iGEM fellows in the past years, the competition has been known by South America countries lately. Uruguay and Peru have never been in the competition, but Colombia was the first of South America to participate, in the very first year of this competition. Since there, Colombia has been participating every year, the only exception was 2010. Chile started to participate in 2012, just like Argentina. The first year for Brazilians was in 2009, and we had 3 teams in the competition last year. This was the maximum of a South America country. When compared to USA, it’s possible to notice an increasing trend of team number participating in iGEM competition. Brazil is the only country in South America which started to establish an increasing number of teams year by year.

South America Companies related to Synthetic Biology

One of the best indicators of how Synthetic Biology is widespread in South America is the companies related to this field. Biotechnology is closely related to Synthetic Biology and the most part of companies which develop biotech may develop SynBio as well. We can observe in the Figure 3, below, that all countries have this kind of company. Peru has the smallest number of Biotec Companies compared to the other countries involved in this research, and for this reason, it doesn’t have any survey study about it. For the rest of these countries, they have survey studies and we could get the right number of companies. Brazil is the leader with 237 companies working in Biotech field right now. This is expected since Amazon represents the greatest biodiversity in the world and the most part of it is situated in Brazil. Then, we have Chile with 200 companies, Colombia with 138 and Argentina with 120. Uruguay is still with a modest number of 32 in Biotech Companies.

Synthetic Biology Regulation in South America

In general, countries/regions in South America do not have specific regulations that address bio-safety issues regarding synthetic biology. The following table summarizes the current regulation imposed on synthetic biology activities in South America countries.

The laws instead enforce pre-existing guidelines that were originally formulated for the regulation of genetically engineered or genetically modified organisms or even use of biodiversity and biotechnology. These regulations were developed in the early 1990s and late-2000s. Scientists in Brazil argue that new specific regulations for synthetic biology by the government are necessary for the safe development of the field in these countries. In other hand, this regulation requires detailed analysis because it can prevent the synthetic biology development. (< a href="http://www.interacademies.net/File.aspx?id=25059" target="_blank">Read more)

Currently, no countries in this region have proposed initiating the development of such regulations. Even in United States, they have only the National institutes of health guidelines for research involving recombinant DNA molecules, revised on 2013 but it is not specific for synthetic biology. Actually, in 2010, United States, a leading country in synthetic biology, announced that new regulation or modification of existing regulations that govern synthetic biology is not necessary. The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues of the United States explained that instead of coming up with stringent regulation, they will “choose a middle course” to maximize the potential benefit of synthetic biology. It instead recommended self-regulation by synthetic biologists (Wadman, 2010).

In summary, countries in South America are still beginners in developing synthetic biology. There is still need revision for their legislation to include synthetic biology, there is need to extend the iGEM competition participation, and there is need to promote events related to synthetic biology. In that way, the number of companies in the area and entries in the SynBio map may transpire greater involvement of the countries of South America in this amazing area!