Synthetic biology is transforming science by enabling the construction of biological systems. Advancements like genome editing, bio-manufacturing, and standardised genetic circuits are accelerating research. With the right balance of innovation and regulation, synthetic biology is set to redefine biotechnology and the future of life sciences.

Shahid Akhter, Editor, Healthyouonline, spoke to Prof. Pawan Kumar Dhar, Executive Dir., CVJ Centre for Synthetic Biology & Bio-Manufacturing, CUST,  to explore the opportunities and challenges in Synthetic biology.

Synthetic Biology: Concept and scope

Synthetic biology is all about construction in biological systems. Traditionally, we have tried to reduce the inflammation in biology, right from the, higher level, viewing of the organisms to gross anatomy, histology, cell biology, and molecular biology. This journey has been very successful. And now you have a reverse journey by way of, the data collection and stitching the data in the computer and creating virtual microbes in virtual cells. This is another area called bioinformatics in systems biology. The third area, which was started around 2004 was about construction in biology. It is like the way engineers use the rules and they use the laws of physics to construct buildings. We have not attempted that in the past. All we have done is we have, played with the DNA.

We have created changes in the DNA, and we have lifted DNA from one organism to another organism. And this is called recombinant DNA technology. Or a little more sophisticated term called genetic engineering. However, synthetic biology takes a construction view of biology, which means, synthesizing DNA, synthesizing the whole genome, or constructing organelles within the cell, or constructing the organisms themselves. So this science of construction in biology is called biological engineering or synthetic biology.

Synthetic Biology: Trends and outcome

In this area, we have long DNA synthesis as a technology. There are genome editing tools that are used to lift certain parts of DNA and replace that with another part. Bio-manufacturing is the logical outcome of synthetic biology, because when you design something, when you test that in the lab, then obviously you go to produce some metabolites, that could be proteins or peptides. Some of the recent developments in this area of synthetic biology are redesigning the genes, trying to express genes as standard parts or standard devices or standard circuits.

Synthetic Biology: Challenges

When you get the power of the creator, you have got to be responsible. So the challenges are that, you need to design what is useful because there are some people who may be designing viruses. They may be designing harmful microbes. Now, how do you keep a tab on that? How do you make sure that good science is protected? And those who have got different ideas, they are prevented from doing so ? So we organized a project, nearly three years back with the Ministry of Science and Technology, wherein we have tried to develop a framework for synthetic biology research.

Most of it is covered with the current framework of biotechnology, so that is not much of a worry. But there are certain additional elements that need to be discussed and put as a part of policy. There is a need for regulatory agencies to talk to the scientists, to the industries, and to devise plug ins into the existing systems, which is already very robust, which covers almost everything.

Synthetic Biology: Need for regulation

However, new regulatory loops need to be created back into the current framework. And how do we do that? It is, by discussing the emerging technologies. And this comes under, what is broadly known as Initiative for Critical and Emerging technologies (ICET). Under ICET, the government of India and also the other governments across the world, they have placed synthetic biology under the ICET framework now, which means that, whatever are the technological developments, they need to be seen through the lens of critical and emerging technologies, not only the biosafety, biosecurity, but also this new framework.

Is this framework ready?

To a great extent, people are intellectually on the same page. It is just that one has to, put those plugins and have more discussions with the stakeholders, not only from the scientist and business community and, and the government, but also the social representatives from the society. So I think that’s a wonderful unmet need, which is not alarming or which is not threatening, but it is just that one needs to think about it and, make sure that good science should be encouraged. There should not be overregulation. But at the same time, there are ways to make sure that the bad guys don’t get encouraged to move forward. And how do we do that? It is, when you do data sharing, when you meet each other more often and when you, exchange the information.

Currently we are discussing with the US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and trying to create a responsible innovation framework, which will be applicable to both the countries. We also had interaction with the Sandia National Labs in the US from the bio security perspective. So I think it’s time to harmonize these regulatory frameworks across the world.

Need for university and industry to collaborate

Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) has been absolutely amazing and wonderful in the form of offering their support. It’s such an  inspiring example, because hardly you see industry and university talking to  each other, across the nation.  The entire industry declared its intention to start the center. And after that, there have been deliberations, and, there have been incremental moments along this path. And, the best part of incremental movement is that it’s very robust. We are delighted that, we are placed in a university because that is where the talent and the knowledge exists. We are eagerly looking forward to a model when there is a mutual collaboration. And people from CUSAT  work in the center. Likewise, we offer our tiny contribution back to the university.

Synthetic Biology: The future

What we see in the future, upcoming is, platforms that will enable accelerated engineering of the strains. Earlier people used to engineer strains. It used to take them decades. Now, with this new technology, you can test 100,000 new combinations in the machine and then see which ones are the most stable and which ones are the ones that express the protein of your choice and then take it forward. So, the traditional recombinant DNA technology has been accelerated in the form of synthetic biology.