When asked about the origins of synthetic biology, the most primitive, and first commercially expoited, example that comes to my mind is the construction of oligonucleotides for PCR. Oligo means short or small, and short-chains of nucleotides (DNA or RNA fragments) have become important tools in biotechnology and genetic research, ever since our ability to sequence DNA. In PCR, small pieces of DNA, usually about 15-20 base pairs long, are needed as primers. Oligonucleotides are also used for gene probing, a process for detecting certain specific sequences, and for enzyme optimization techniques like DNA shuffling and site-directed mutagenesis. We now have the ability to make much longer oligonucleotides, and technology is improving to make the process faster. According to a summary paper prepared by BIO for the 2008 World Congress, one of the most significant synthetic biotechnology breakthroughs this decade has been the in vitro construction of an entire chromosome, called PhiX174, in just 14 days. This achievement was reported in the journal PNAS by the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) and team of scientists lead by Drs. Smith, Hutchinson and Venter, in 2003.

Travelling during a global pandemic is a risky business! I just got back from a trip to another province of Canada, a four hour flight away. While Ontario is handing out Swine Flu vaccine to the "priority groups" - small children, seniors and health-care workers, BC is facing a shortage and Alberta is dealing with bioethics issues arising from the public outcry over vaccination of the Calgary Flames, and a debate over whether firefighters are a high-risk group. One of the participants of a meeting I attended refused to shake anyone's hand for fear of getting sick, and last week I heard from a friend that children in her neighborhood of Toronto were not allowed to go Trick-or-Treating, because of influenza fears.

During my flight home I wasn't feeling the greatest and my colleague said, a little too loud, "I hope you aren't getting sick". I quickly told her not to say that too loud and looked around for the lynch mob that might throw me off the airplane at 10,000 feet. Every year there is a percentage of people getting the flu who die from it. In the USA, approximately 36,000 people die every year from the flu, although many of those are cases complicated by additional infections such as Pneumonia and Staphylococcus. This year, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has developed a new PCR-based diagnostic kit for detection of H1N1, which will not only help diagnosis but will aid in collection of more accurate statistics. In many past cases, flu patients also had known risk factors that compromised their immune system, but many don't, including roughly half of the pediatric cases. The CDC estimates mortalities due to H1N1 at somewhere over 1000, 114 of which were children, as of the end of October. Initial reports were that this strain had actually turned out to be fairly mild, so while people weigh the risks of taking the new vaccine against risks of getting, or even dying from H1N1, confusion abounds and we are experiencing the same sort of panic that prevailed in Toronto during the SARs epidemic.

Geron Corporation is a company based in Menlo Park, CA and the first biotech company in the USA to be granted permission for a clinical trial of regenerative medicine using embryonic stem cells, in humans. While permission was granted in January 2009, the trials were put on hold until last Friday (October 30, 2009) when the latest round of preclinical trials using animals revealed some side effects that warranted further investigation.

According to the Geron News Release, test animals receiving the treatment, GRNOPC1, developed a higher number of cysts at the area of spinal cord injury than in previous studies. However, the FDA has agreed to allow the studies to continue, since the cysts appear to be non-proliferative, confined to the injury site, and not associated with any serious adverse effects or SUSARS.

GRNOPC1 consists of human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs). Oligodendrocytes are cells of the nervous system that produce the myelin shealth, which insultates the axons of nerve cells. Injection with the cells was shown to enhance remyelination of the spinal cord in adult rats. Demyelination after spinal cord injury contributes to loss of neural function. Rats treated with GRNOPC1 seven days after injury exhibited substantially better recovery and improved locomotor ability.

Geron expects re-initiation of the clinical trial in late 2010. Since the treatment must be applied shortly after injury, anyone wanting to participate in a clinical trial must agree to injections within 7 to 14 days of spinal injury.

Geron's pipeline also includes an anti-cancer drug and vaccine that target the telomerase enzyme.

_{Source: Keirstead, H. et al. 2005. Human embryonic stem cell-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cell transplants remyelinate and restore locomotion after spinal cord injury. J. Neuroscience 25:4694-4705. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.0311-05.2005.}

Among those who work in biotechnology, there are three main areas of study: Biomedical, industrial, and environmental biotechnology. In just 15 years since PCR and gene cloning became a part of mainstream biotech research, industrial applications for the products of enzyme technology and GMOs have become competitive alternatives to traditional manufacturing processes, but still, few people are aware of how many everyday enzyme products have made it into their homes.

Biofuels still seem to have a long way to go before widespread use and acceptance validate the claims of their proponents. While the biofuels industry has it's critics, the arguments in favour include the use of renewable feedstocks. Many pharmaceuticals today are actually semi-synthetic molecules, made in fermentation processes by living organisms and later chemically modified, if need be. The costs associated with batch production, and complications pertaining to large-scale protein purification and equipment sterilization, are among the downsides to bioprocessing. The most well-known biotech product in the home might be enzyme-based detergents, like those produced by the widely recognized Novozymes.

Just about everyone is familiar with the story of stone-washed jeans and how they came to be enzymatically-altered. But jeans don't make an industry and biotech has yet to gain acceptance in many areas where the public is wary of the bioethical ramifications and potential health risks (xenotransplantation, stem cell research, nanotechnology). With so many complex issues to solve, will we ever become a fully sustainable, bio-based world?