Synthetic Biology - Brutes or Angels: Human Possibility in the Age of Biotechnology - page 282

cules but that behave similarly to nature's molecules. The goals defining synthetic
biology, they write, are “to reproduce advanced, complex, and dynamic behav-
iors of biological systems, including genetics, inheritance, and evolution” (Ben-
ner, hutter, and sismour 2003, 125-26).
14. The authors (yang et al. 2006) describe two new bases similar to nature's
A, C, T, and G and report that these have been used to develop diagnostic tools
for hepatitis B and C and for detection of genetic defects associated with cystic fi-
brosis. see also Klotz 2009.
15. This article (Katsnelson 2009) also reports on some of the technical prob-
lems encountered by students, which reflect unsolved problems in the synbio dis-
cipline as a whole. one major difficulty is that the short DnA sequences at each
end of a BioBrick, which serve to “glue” different BioBricks together, often inter-
fere with the operation of the biological devices constructed.
16. A. Campbell 2005 describes and illustrates some of the students' projects
in the 2004 iGem competition at miT.
17. Parens, Johnston, and moses (2008) argue that synthetic biology presents
no new categories of ethical problems beyond those that arise from other new
technologies. for a full report of their study, see Parens et al. 2009.
18. Dyson sees mostly positive things coming from increased accessibility to
methods for the genetic manipulation of life: “Domesticated biotechnology, once
it gets into the hands of housewives and children, will give us an explosion of di-
versity of new living creatures, rather than the monoculture crops that the big
corporations prefer. new lineages will proliferate to replace those that monocul-
ture farming and deforestation have destroyed. Designing genomes will be a per-
sonal thing, a new art form as creative as painting or sculpture” (2007, sec. 1,
para. 6).
19. Us Patent Application 20030170663 by Claire m. fraser et al., september
11, 2003. This patent application by Craig venter and his group for the minimal
genome of Mycoplasm genitalium is at http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser
?sect1=PTo2&sect2=hiToff&u=%2fnetahtml%2fPTo%2fsearch- adv.html
&r=8&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&s1=(%22minimal+genome%22+AnD+
venter)&os=”minimal+genome”+and+venter&rs=(“minimal+genome”+AnD
+venter) (accessed June 15, 2012).