Synthetic Hype
Posted by Jonathan Kahn, Biopolitical Times guest contributor December 27, 2010
Biopolitical Times
I've been thinking lately about the current excitement over the promise and potential of synthetic biology. The basic idea of synthetic biology is to make biology more like engineering, creating standardized biological "parts" that can be combined to redesign existing biological systems or create entirely new ones that do not already exist in the natural world. It is aptly represented by the concept of "biobricks," a trademarked term describing "standard biological parts [that] a synthetic biologist or biological engineer can [use to] program living organisms in the same way a computer scientist can program a computer."
I am concerned because this seems to be the latest in a long line of grand promises that have accompanied demands for resources (both monetary and intellectual) for successive major biotechnological undertakings over the past twenty years. Each of these undertakings has been worthy in its own right but none has, as yet, come anywhere near to realizing the extravagant claims made by its initial promoters. Modern developments in biotechnology have been driven, in part, by an ever receding horizon of promise. Many scholars (Adam Hedgcoe, Mike Fortun, Karen-Sue Taussig, and others) have commented on the politics of promise and potential in biotechnology. With each new advance, claims are staked out for future benefits that remain unfulfilled until the next new advance re-stakes the claim and re-sets the horizon for realizing its promise further into the future.
The dynamic really began with the Human Genome Project in the 1990s.
Read more
I am concerned because this seems to be the latest in a long line of grand promises that have accompanied demands for resources (both monetary and intellectual) for successive major biotechnological undertakings over the past twenty years. Each of these undertakings has been worthy in its own right but none has, as yet, come anywhere near to realizing the extravagant claims made by its initial promoters. Modern developments in biotechnology have been driven, in part, by an ever receding horizon of promise. Many scholars (Adam Hedgcoe, Mike Fortun, Karen-Sue Taussig, and others) have commented on the politics of promise and potential in biotechnology. With each new advance, claims are staked out for future benefits that remain unfulfilled until the next new advance re-stakes the claim and re-sets the horizon for realizing its promise further into the future.
The dynamic really began with the Human Genome Project in the 1990s.
Read more