Country Profile

Dear fellow iGEMers,

We got the ideia to perform this country profile from Hong_Kong_HKUST Team last year. We figured it would be an awesome idea to try to compare the Synthetic Biology and Biotech panorama among all continents. We would like to encourage you to do the same in your region! Go for it!

Brazil

Argentina

Chile

Colombia

Peru

Uruguay

Synthetic biology is the design and construction of new biological entities such as enzymes, genetic circuits, and cells or the redesign of existing biological systems. The element that distinguishes synthetic biology from traditional molecular and cellular biology is the focus on the design and construction of core components (parts of enzymes, genetic circuits, metabolic pathways, etc.) that can be modeled, understood, and tuned to meet specific performance criteria, and the assembly of these smaller parts and devices into larger integrated systems that solve specific problems. Being considered to hold significant technological potential, the development up to now has mostly been centered in the West, in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

In more recent years, South American countries have begun to participate on the international synthetic biology field. But it stills only the beginning. With the target of amending this situation, we present this literature research as a reference for progress in synthetic biology in South America: Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Colombia. It includes data of research achievements, regulations and funding that we got using online search (in native language – Spanish) and also in Portuguese, our native language.

Regarding to our home country, the development of biotechnology and synthetic biology has been significant in Brazil, both in terms of production of goods and services such as knowledge. The country has applied a great deal of public policies in the last thirty years for biotech development. From 2004, with the Industrial, Technological and Foreign Trade (PITCE), biotechnology and synthetic biology have earned the status of "bearing area of the future" or "strategic". Among the most important aspects of policies is promoting new businesses and the growth of the business sector dedicated to biotechnology and synthetic biology. However, it is still developing in the country, understanding the social and political aspects of the economic sector.

Comparison