BioBricks

MIT has created BioBricks, analogous to Lego Bricks and standard electronic circuit components, from which complex biochemical pathways can be created using more fundamental known biochemical pathways.

Now, don't get this wrong, but it is in no way something very new. MIT has been hosting the BioBricks competition for two years now, and BioBricks have been in development for two years as well. BioBricks are essentially a catalog of standard biochemical parts that can be assembled in a variety of ways to create functional chemical/biological/electronic/physical (almost everything) pathways for synthesizing products. Best of all, by isolating the pathways required and providing the raw materials for synthesis of the product needed, a researcher can achieve more efficient production of that product as opposed to providing micro-organisms (such as bacteria) with those raw materials, as micro-organisms tend to have side-reactions going on inside their cells that use up the raw materials but do not produce the desired product.

Additionally, by cataloging these standard pathways, one would be able to, to quote EE Times, "assemble working systems at the abstract level described in the catalog and pass the design to then another group of biochemists for synthesis in a biological manufacturing system." What it means is that one can work like an electronics engineer - design a circuit on a computer and pass it onto the production facilities to produce the desired circuit.

Now, what are the possibilities capable with BioBricks? From my standpoint, I believe we will be able to achieve advancements in two fields - disease treatment and energy conservation (cheers to you, Mridul!)

In disease treatment, I believe that we will be able to synthesize weakened versions of disease-causing organisms, perhaps by altering the genes that produce their proteins so that a particular protein is missing from their body that would render them harmless, while still preserving the overall structure of that organism. In this way, we could produce a - yes, you've got it - vaccine against many different types of disease-causing micro-organisms.

In energy conservation, imagine if we could synthesize, using the enzymes synthesized via the BioBricks pathways, to impregnate the light-energy-capturing portion of solar panels in a more concentrated and densely-packed manner. This would help reach greater efficiency in energy capture, and, since the impregnation is catalyzed by reusable enzymes, it would also help to reach greater cost-effectiveness. Extending beyond that, it would help make solar energy more affordable to commoners, because the use of enzymes in this synthetic process would help achieve economies of scale, and hence help proliferate the use of solar energy in the process too.

I guess Samsung would love to invest in this. After all, their most recent ads are telling us, "After all, it isn't that hard to imagine."

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Edit: Mridul pointed out that "After all, it isn't that hard to imagine." comes from Samsung ads, not Panasonic ads. I've edited it above. Cheers to you!

Virus Transports DNA

So it's real, viruses can be designed to inject cells with DNA. Lentiviruses can transport DNA into cells with more consistency and efficiency than traditional methods can, which will improve the rate of creation of transgenic animals. Now, that is something I didn't know. Seems like I'm outdated for now.

However, the viruses infect every single cell they meet. What I envision is a virus that will home in on cancer cells, perhaps with a single identifiable cell surface protein that will serve as a marker for the virus. The virus will deliver the desired gene only into the cells with that protein marker, following which, it will insert the gene into those cells. If we can use siRNA inside the virus, then we can theoretically cause cancer cells to die.

Click on the title of this post for more information.