Drew Endy's Hollywood Dreams for Synthetic Biology
Drew Endy, Stanford professor and synthetic biology evangelist, gave an interesting overview of the subject in general and "The iGEM Revolution" in particular at a Long Now seminar on September 16 in San Francisco. A summary will be posted soon, as well as complete video.
Endy is convinced that this is the century of biology, and in particular of making things with biology. He even invoked "Steve & Steve" (Jobs & Wozniak) — a common trope among synthetic biology types — claiming that the technology he started with was even cruder than the first Apple (which didn't even have a screen). The implication is, of course, that these new tools will lead to an equivalent technical, economic and social revolution.
Some DiY biotech initiatives do struggle along on a shoestring, but the analogy is misleading. iGEM has 20,000 alumni, Endy said, scattered among labs worldwide. Stanford's department of bioengineering alone has two dozen core faculty, plus associates and consultants; this is not a small operation, nor are those in Cambridge and elsewhere. Allied Market Research is hawking a report claiming that the global synthetic biology market will reach $38.7 billion by 2020.
Yet Endy admitted, in the Q&A, that "we need to figure out what we wish for." Which might help to explain why (as he complained) movies always seem to show biologists as villains, although he and others in the field seem to view themselves, sincerely though not always humbly, as white knights and revolutionary heroes bringing salvation and transcendence to the planet. Sadly for them, Hollywood has not yet come up with the "realistic heroic narratives" that Endy thinks are needed to promote biotech to the general public.
Previously on Biopolitical Times:
- On the New Alphabet of Life
- When and How Will We Regulate Synthetic Biology?
- Transcendence: See it for its Cultural Relevance, Not its Plot Line
- A Kickstop for Synthetic Biology?