Synthetic Biology and Artificial Systems

Synthetic biology has been defined as the creation of artificial life forms, but, in reality, is more often exemplified in the creation of synthetic (man-made) building blocks of lifeforms, such as ribosomes, tissues and proteins and their ligands, that can be added together to create, or enhance, a biological system (as are studied in systems biology).

At University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Bertozzi and her research group study cell surface interactions and use synthetic biology to manipulate cellular processes. In doing so, they have been able to adjust the intercellular environment, control how the cells stick to one another, which affects their assembly into tissues. They reported using different types of genetically engineered cells to make artificial tissues capable of many of the functions of cell clusters, such as secreting and responding to hormones.

This work is really founded on the alteration of already existing cells, not the creation of completely new ones from scratch. The novelty of the work, however, is that tissues formed from these cells are like none other and can perform as no individual cell can. In systems such as this, the community of cells acts as a whole towards an end product of the scientist's design, such as large scale drug production. Smart polymers are also examples of synthetic biology, in that they are artificial polymer-based substances that can be designed to react in a cascade-like fashion to changes in their environment, much like the inner workings of a cell.

_{Source: Gartner, Z. and Bertozzi, C. 2009. Programmed assembly of 3-dimensional microtissues with defined cellular connectivity. PNAS 106(12):4606-4610.}