Doing synthetic biology means doing what Nature would never have done... Or rather copying what Nature has given us, by attributing other functions to it.
Some products resulting from this techno-science are already on the market.
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In Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area, Jay Keasling, professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering at the University of California at Berkeley and CEO of the Joint BioEnergy Institute in Emeryville, is producing a molecule against malaria. Until now, the artemisinin molecule used in treatments against this disease was extracted from a small rare shrub. Jay found another way to produce it, by modifying the genome of yeast. As beer is brewed, he manufactures this precious medicine, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This product is manufactured on a large scale, enough to treat 120 million people, and much faster than with traditional techniques.
Joel Cherry, research director at Amyris in Emeryville, in its factory in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in the middle of sugar cane fields, compares himself to a plumber who modifies and diverts the piping of cellular systems. He designs microbes that produce diesel from a molecule present in the skin of the green apple.
Evolva, in Europe, has developed cells capable of producing the saffron molecule, so coveted for millennia...
But Synthetic Biology is not just about multi-million dollar investment budgets.
It’s also another way of doing research, off the beaten track. Thomas Landrain, doctoral thesis student in Synthetic Biology and founder of La Paillasse in Paris, is one of these rebellious bio-hackers or bio-geeks who advocate open-source and garage biology. La Paillasse has become one of the largest bio hacker spaces in the world, an open, citizen and community laboratory, a space of freedom for innovation. Thomas Landrain is designing a non-polluting biological ink which would replace the cartridge of our pen, composed of a bio-reactor with bacteria producing pigments.
In this same spirit, young academics from around the world participate every year in the MIT IGEM competition. They give free rein to their imagination to design cells with innovative properties, from the most serious to the most fanciful.
In the midst of this creative frenzy, Ed You keeps watch. He is a supervisor in the biological threat unit at the FBI's Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate.
But the fears are not limited to security concerns.
Jim Thomas, program director of the NGO Etcetera Group, measures the impact of new technologies on society, the environment and the economy. He denounces the pride, excess and naivety of scientists... Will synthetic biology sign the death warrant for traditional manufacturing methods and small producers? Can we produce life on a large scale without disrupting global ecology? Can we reduce life to a machine?
Directors: Charles-Antoine de Rouvre and Jérôme Scemla
© THE COMPAGNIE DES TAXI-BROUSSE - 2016
4 окт 2024
