ynthetic biology, or the application of engineering acids in ways never seen in nature. Advances in molecular engineer- principles to the design of life, presents world-changing ing are driving the construction of ever-more complex circuits made prospects. Could components of a living cell function from biological materials. And the ability to freeze-dry cellular tran- as tiny switches or circuits? How would that allow bio- scription machinery outside the confines of cells has enabled scien- medical engineers to build biological “smart devices”— tists to easily manufacture at will, at any time and place. Sfrom sensors deployed inside the body to portable medical kits able Most synthetic biology today centers on single-celled organ- to produce vaccines and antibiotics on demand? Could bacterial isms, such as the bacterium Escherichia coli. In the spring of 2019, for “factories” replace the fossil-fueled industries that produce plas- example, researchers at the University of Cambridge announced tics, foods, and fertilizers? Will the secrets of living creatures that that they had synthesized an entire E. coli genome—the bacterium’s enter suspended animation during periods of drought and extreme complete set of genetic material—and swapped it into living E. coli cold be harnessed to keep human victims of trauma alive? And is cells. Their version, which at four million base pairs (the building the genetic information preserved in long-frozen or fossilized ex- blocks of the DNA double helix) was then the largest synthetic ge- tinct species, like woolly mammoths, sufficiently recoverable to nome created to date, was nevertheless a pared-down variant that help save living species? eliminated redundancies, thereby simplifying the biological com-

These ideas, once the stuff of science fic- Synthetic biology plexity evolved over millennia and making tion, are now the stuff ofscience. Some aren’t the easier for human engineers to yet functioning realities, but others have understand and manipulate. Although the launched business applications, whether in and the frontiers bacteria with synthetic genomes were not medicine (such as hospital gowns that sig- as robust as their natural counterparts, and nal exposure to infection) or in land reme- of technology reproduced slowly, they survived. diation (where bacterial “factories” pow- The scientists who do this work know ered by the sun capture nitrogen from the that they are operating in a new domain, atmosphere to help plants grow). Someday, with transformative possibilities. James engineered forms of life that store carbon by Jonathan Shaw Collins, a core faculty member at the Wyss may even be one of the solutions to Earth’s Institute who 20 years ago created one of the climate-change problem. first biological circuits, believes this synthet- “Most of biology, historically, has been ic, engineered biology “will be a defining, if analyzing how nature works,” says Don- not the defining, technology of the century.” ald Ingber, director of Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Snapshots of the evolving technologies follow. Inspired Engineering. Systems biology is the culmination of that ef- fort to deconstruct natural processes. Now, with synthetic biology, Switches, Sensors, and Medicines on Demand he points out, scientists “are at the point where we know enough In January 2000, Collins and a team at Princeton, working sep- that we can actually engineer artificial and natural biological sys- arately, simultaneously published in Nature the first designs for tems.” Researchers today can build things from biological parts, and switches made from biological parts. That innovation arguably even create hybrid systems by linking them to non-living machines. marked the beginning of modern synthetic biology. Collins had Propelling the science forward are scores of innovations in bio- engineered a switch, like the push button on a desk lamp: press logical science, with new discoveries coming every month. Among once, the light turns on; press again, it turns off. Collins’s simple the most important are advances in genetic editing, including im- mechanism was not built from metal and plastic, but from two genes provements in accuracy, and the ability to make hundreds of changes that flip-flopped between on and off states when stimulated by at once. Another is computer-aided design, widely used to model chemical signals or changes in temperature. It was a simple circuit. biological systems, and to build new proteins by combining amino The simplicity of what Collins had created belied its potential.

Harvard Magazine 37

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 The ability to engineer biological circuits in this way meant that signed to combine systematically with an opposite RNA strand cells could represent binary states such as the zeros and ones that associated with a bacterial pathogen. That opens the switch, which are the basis of computer systems. They could perform simple logic. then releases a fluorescent particle that reveals the presence of And because they could be programmed to die after a certain num- the pathogen. ber of cell divisions, they enabled the creation of the first kill-switch To effect this, researchers must engineer biological circuits and safety mechanisms to prevent with synthetic parts from insert them into living bacteria: a process that sounds formidably escaping into the environment. complex. But scientists know that different kinds of bacteria, in Many of the earliest biological switches were crude and prone the course of evolutionary history, have routinely exchanged whole to accidental triggering. The inside of even a single-celled bacte- “cassettes” of many genes, such as those that control metabolism. rium such as E. coli, where engineered synthetic circuits are often This swapping of genetic material is called “horizontal gene trans-

James Collins introduced and tested, is very busy. There are “many molecules, fer.” Within these cassettes that control particular biological func- large and small, interacting in a very small space,” explains Col- tions, researchers have devised ways to alter specific genes, and then lins, who teaches in the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences reinject the whole functioning circuit into a cell. and Technology. All this activity can lead to what engineers call These genetic circuits control what proteins the cell produces. “crosstalk,” instances when a stray signal can accidentally flip a Since the 1960s, biologists have known that the -synthesiz- simple switch. Such unpredictable behavior would be anathema ing machinery of a bacterium can even be plucked from within the in biomedical applications. cell’s protective outer membrane, placed in a laboratory test tube But biological switches have become much more robust since or petri dish, and still function. 2000, allowing them to be used in laboratory animals as reliable In October 2014, the field took another leap forward when the detectors that signal the presence of pathogens. In applications Collins lab published a serendipitous discovery that advanced the in the gut, for example, RNA-based switches have been designed practicality of using RNA-based switches as detectors in the field— to release appropriate probiotic therapies. Such an RNA-based and even as therapy-producing agents. While working to develop switch takes advantage of the fact that the bases on a single strand encapsulated cell-free genetic networks for cellular reprogramming, of RNA want to pair with opposite bases, just as “A[denine] goes postdoctoral student Keith Pardee discovered that a cell’s tran- to T[hymine] and G[uanine] goes to C[ytosine]” in DNA base pair- scription and translation machinery (the parts that build proteins ing, Collins explains. This means that an RNA probe can be de- from DNA instructions) could be spotted onto a piece of paper,

38 January - February 2020 Portraits by Jim Harrison

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 The lab’s first deployment of the technology was to create a detector for Ebola, a rare but deadly disease that has killed thousands of people in West Africa. freeze-dried, and then restored to full function when rehydrated. scription and translation—the parts that enable that modified DNA The lab’s first deployment of the technology was to create a detec- with its associated genes to be “turned on and express the relevant tor for Ebola, a rare but deadly disease that has killed thousands of proteins.” In the case of diagnostics, the rehydration that activates people in West Africa. Subsequent testing revealed that their Ebola protein production might be a patient’s blood, urine, or sputum. In detector remained viable for a year or more—without the need for the case of therapeutics, adding water is enough to revive the ma- refrigeration. This was significant, because Ebola often strikes in chinery for making vaccines or antibiotics. This has enabled his lab to remote regions poorly served by healthcare facilities. develop field kits the size of a small cellphone that could be carried The lab has subsequently used the same techniques to make di- “by soldiers or hikers or astronauts, athletes, or healthcare workers agnostics for the Zika virus, for gut microbiome analysis, and for detecting antibiotic resistance. “We now have ef- forts underway looking at Lyme dis- ease, HIV, TB, HPV, and hepatitis C,” says Collins. “It has provided us with a whole new diagnostic platform.” Because these paper-based tests contain no living cells, he points out, there are neither biocontainment safe- ty concerns nor problems of storage and distribution. “You have marvelous sensors” made from “biological compo- nents that are incredibly inexpensive, easy to use, and rapid”—providing re- sults in less than an hour. Collins’s lab went on to demonstrate that this transcription-translation ma- chinery could be spotted and freeze- dried into fibers used to make cloth- ing, and is now completing work on wearable synthetic biology: suits that could show first responders or mili- tary personnel whether they have The ability to freeze-dry the in global healthcare settings” to make their own medicines been exposed to a nerve toxin; john- mechanisms that cells use to when needed. The individual would take the freeze-dried produce proteins has led to nies that could tell whether a patient portable diagnostics and thera- contents of a cell (its protein-manufacturing apparatus), add has a bedsore or an antibiotic-resistant pies, such as vaccines and antibiot- water to restore the bacterial machinery’s ability to synthe- infection; and lab coats that could sig- ics that can be manufactured on size proteins, and then add the freeze-dried engineered cir- nal whether a physician has been ex- demand in the field. cuit containing the DNA instructions for making “a vaccine posed to dangerous MRSA (methicil- or an…antibiotic”—and within a couple of hours at body lin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, an antibiotic-resistant form temperature, the therapy “is there to be used in the field.” of staph) or Clostridium difficile pathogens. (The lab recently won a Taking advantage of the diversity and power of biology in this way, Johnson & Johnson contest to design the lab coat of the future.) Collins says, “enables you to move synthetic biology out of the lab.” Collins has also expanded the uses of freeze-drying to portable therapeutics. Just as the cellular machinery of a bacterium can be Bacterial Factories of the Future made to detect a pathogen, it can be engineered to produce a vaccine Pamela Silver, a founder of the field of synthetic biology, runs or an antibiotic such as vancomycin. one of Harvard’s most prolific labs, with dozens of projects in train Most antibiotics are products of soil-dwelling bacteria. To make at any time. Among the most important questions she faces, there- a therapeutic such as vancomycin, Collins takes existing circuits (or fore, is what to do next. For a long time, says the Adams professor of bits of DNA) that “are found naturally or have already been produced biochemistry and systems biology, synthetic biology was producing by others,” that will “make the molecule of interest.” He uses gene- “toy systems. But now we’re at a point where we’re saying, ‘Forget editing tools such as CRISPR to insert these circuits into cells, and this. We actually need to solve real-world problems.’” then freeze-dries these circuits together with the machinery for tran- Agriculture is one area of critical need: a growing world pop-

Image courtesy of James Collins/MIT/AB Forces News Collection/Alamy Stock Photo Harvard Magazine 39

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 ulation must be fed. Silver and her long-term collaborator Dan- Turning bacteria into plant food that can be applied to fields “has iel Nocera, Rockwood professor of energy in the department of huge implications,” Silver explains, “because you can produce the chemistry and chemical biology, have therefore devised a process bacteria locally and do so in a completely ‘green’ production cycle.” to manufacture inexpensively one of the most energy-intensive The system has been spun off to a company, Kula Bio, that produces products farmers use: fertilizer, which provides the nitrogen that low-cost, organic fertilizers. plants need to grow. Silver’s latest, “craziest,” venture, as she puts it, is a project to The work builds on an artificial leaf invented earlier by Nocera, study suspended animation—biostasis—as part of a DARPA-fund- a device that harnesses solar energy to split water (H2O) in order ed (Defense Advanced Research Projects) research program. Her to produce hydrogen, an energy source. To create fertilizer, Silver team, one of four, received more than $14 million to develop ways helped Nocera and members of his lab connect the artificial leaf to to slow metabolic processes in order to lengthen the time a trauma a strain of bacteria that can “fix” both atmospheric carbon dioxide victim, whether soldier or civilian, can survive without medical help. and nitrogen, converting them to organic forms that can be used by To do so, she is studying : water-loving creatures living organisms. Provided with an unlimited supply of hydrogen roughly two-thousandths of an inch long that live everywhere from

Pamela Silver from the artificial leaf, the bacteria combine the hydrogen with oceans to mountaintops. Sometimes called moss piglets, these or- carbon pulled from the atmosphere to create a solid fuel that the ganisms can withstand extreme temperatures, drought, and even bacteria store internally, as a long-term energy supply. “You can cosmic radiation, achieving extraordinary feats of survival by en- imagine this as making the bacteria fat,” explains Nocera: “obese, tering a state in which they shut down metabolism almost entirely. solar-fed bacteria” that are up to 30 percent stored energy by weight. This trick, known as , conjures images from science The bacteria are then mixed into the soil, where some remain, and fiction of suspended animation during human flights to distant others form associations directly with plant roots. Drawing from colonies on other planets. their stored energy reserves, they begin fixing atmospheric nitro- Extremophiles like the , Silver explains, commonly gen, thus fertilizing the plants. (Because the carbon in the bacteria carry what early researchers called “intrinsically disordered pro- remains sequestered in the soil even after the bacteria deplete their teins,” possessing a structure that appears to be mutable and gel- energy stores and die, the process has the added advantage of being like. When facing desiccation, tardigrades use these proteins, mixed atmospheric carbon-negative.) On test fields, Nocera reports “big with sugars, to form a protective glassy film that fills their cells increases in crop yields” with almost no run-off, an environmen- and encapsulates their organs. Silver seeks to engineer a synthetic tally poisonous side effect of water-soluble chemical fertilizers. version well suited for use with human cells. To achieve this, she

40 January - February 2020

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 “How do you make a world for 10 billion people? The only way you are going to do that is by engineering biology.” has teamed up with associate professor of systems biology Debora Asian elephants carry endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV), Marks, a computational biologist and co-principal investigator on which kills up to 80 percent of newborns that contract it. The vi- the project, who will use a machine-learning algorithm to suggest rus has caused hemorrhagic bleeding and death in numerous Asian candidate protein designs that might work in human tissues. elephants held in captivity, and recent testing in Southeast Asia Intrinsically disordered proteins could eventually help reduce points to it as the cause of documented wild-elephant deaths there the severity of heart attacks by limiting heart-muscle damage, or as well. To help save this endangered species, Church plans first the impact of a stroke by slowing the death of nearby neurons. to edit its genome to make it resistant to EEHV or to all viruses. They might also extend the viability of human eggs stored for Doing so will require multiple edits in several parts of the el- use in fertility treatments, or lengthen the usable life of organs ephant genome. But that part won’t be difficult, he says: Church’s harvested for transplant. For now, though, Silver acknowledges, team (Eriona Hysoli, Bobby Dhadwar, and Jessica Weber) has per- “It’s early days.” fected the ability to engineer virus-free mammalian genomes as part And when asked about the biggest challenge for synthetic biol- of a virology program for breeding pigs whose organs can be safely ogy, Silver replies bluntly that the true challenge is “How do you transplanted into humans. The hard part is the real-world problem make a world for 10 billion people? The only way you are going to do that is by engineering biology”—work that is just beginning.

Applying Ancient DNA to Contemporary Conservation Could synthetic biology save one elephant species by reanimating at least a portion of the biodiversity of an extinct species? George Church, perhaps the pre- eminent genome technologist in the world, believes so. Church does basic-science research as well as funda- mental technology development, working at the nexus of Internet technologies, computing, and biotechnology. Broadly speaking, he says, synthetic biology is molecu- lar engineering: whether it utilizes biology to simulate logic circuits, probe the origins of life (a topic covered in depth in “How Life Began,” July-August 2019, page 40), manipulate metabolism, manufacture products, or en- hance biological imaging. As an engineering discipline,

says the Winthrop professor of genetics, “biology af- MAREK MIS/SCIENCE SOURCE fords you the use of very sophisticated parts. Way more Tardigrades, or water bears, can of how to respond to the elephants’ shrink- sophisticated than the piston in a car or the transistor survive extremes of drought, heat, ing habitat. “It’s not just the herpesvirus and cold for as long as a decade in in a phone. Biological parts have been through billions a state of metabolic suspension. that’s putting them at risk,” he explains, of years of debugging—trial and error.” “it’s their proximity to human beings. An In synthetic biology, this trial and error process is even better than elephant will innocently stamp on farmers’ gardens and destroy a the real thing because it can be accelerated, he explains. “We can year’s crops, and so the farmers, correctly according to their own make a trillion prototypes and then design a system that will select the ethics, say, ‘Well, that elephant owes us some food.’ And they kill best” (see “Harnessing Evolution,” January-February 2017, page 15, for the elephant that night.” a description). Church’s lab runs on a similarly accelerated pace that He has a genetic solution to that problem, too. He proposes further frequently puts his forward-looking projects in the public domain. edits to the elephant’s genome that would introduce woolly mam- News accounts often report that he wants to revive the wool- moth genes into Asian elephants in order to confer cold resistance. ly mammoth, a cold-adapted el- Church’s team began the process by comparing the genomes ephant that roamed Siberia as re- of Asian elephants to those harvested from the remains of woolly cently as 10,000 years ago. In fact, mammoths, which are about 99 percent similar, he says. By fo- For more examples of synthetic Church is undertaking a multi- cusing on the differences, he can home in on those that enabled biologists at work, see the pronged conservation project— woolly mammoths to survive in places like the Siberian tundra. online profiles “An Atomically with synthetic biology at its Like all genes, those that allow organisms to survive in such inhos- Precise Forest for the Price of core—that he hopes will benefit pitable environments are largely conserved across species, mak- the Sunlight” and “Making an living Asian elephants, humans, ing it possible to determine the function of most genes without Invisible World Visible.” the Arctic, and perhaps the planet. having to start from scratch. As for the (please turn to page 74)

Harvard Magazine 41

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200114_HBS_ExecEd.indd 1 11/20/19 9:39 AM LETTERS (continued from page 8) Editor’s note: The July-August 2019 comment STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION. Publication title: Harvard Magazine. Publication no. 0095-2427. in 7 Ware Street, on admissions preferences, Filing date: 9/26/2019. Issue frequency: bi-monthly. Number of issues published annually: 6. Annual subscription price: $30. April 2018, page 36] continued this divisive addressed this issue in part. Complete mailing address of known office of publication and headquarters or general business office of the publisher: 7 Ware accommodationist tradition by obsequiously Street, Cambridge MA 02138. Contact person: Felecia Carter, 617-496-6694. Publisher: Irina Kuksin, Harvard Magazine, 7 capitulating to the conservative demands of AMPLIFICATIONS AND ERRATA Ware Street, Cambridge MA 02138. Editor: John Rosenberg, Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge MA 02138. Man- Carnegie after its officials strongly objected Netflix numbers. David Rountree, of Mont- aging Editor: Jonathan Shaw, Harvard Magazine, 7 Ware Street, Cambridge MA 02138. Owner: Harvard Magazine Inc., 7 Ware to the militant tone of an essay written by gomery, Alabama, writes in reference to Street, Cambridge MA 02138. Known bondholders, mortgag- none other than W.E.B. Du Bois [A.B. 1890, “Craig Lambert’s wonderful article on A.O. ees, or other security holders: none. The purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt sta- Ph.D. ’95] for the foundation-funded project. Scott” (“The Way of the Critic,” November- tus for federal income tax purposes have not changed during the preceding 12 months. Issue date for circulation data below: M. Anthony Fitchue, Ed.M. ’74 December 2019, page 48) that it notes par- September-October 2019. Avg. no. copies Single issue Baltimore enthetically that Netflix doesn’t release rat- each issue nearest to preced. 12 mos filing date ings data. He observes, “I suspect the piece A. Total no. of copies (Net press run) ...... 265,560 267,839 ATHLETICS AND ADMISSIONS was written and edited before Netflix began B. Paid and/or requested circulation The excellent commentary “About Ath- doing so.” 1. Paid/req. outside-county mail subscriptions stated letics” (7 Ware Street, November-Decem- Ratings, righted. Helene Liberson Keers ’59 on Form 3541...... 262,947 265,603 2. Paid in-county subs ...... 0 0 ber, page 5) omits mention of a troubling writes, “My husband, a University of Chi- 3. Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors, aspect of athletics at Harvard. While the cago graduate, has brought to my attention counter sales, and other Ivy League does not allow athletic scholar- an error in the ‘Ratings Game’ item on page non-USPS paid distribution ...... 369 391 4. Other classes mailed ships, it does permit significant preferences 27 (Brevia, November-December 2019). Be- through the USPS ...... 0 0 C. Total paid and/or in admissions for athletes. At Harvard, this hind Princeton­ and Harvard in the U.S. News & requested circulation ...... 263,316 265,994 D. Free or nominal rate distribution by mail means that one-fifth of all undergraduates World Report compendium there is a four-way 1. Outside-county as stated on Form 3541 ...... 177 175 receive a heavy thumb on the admissions tie, including Chicago as well as Columbia, 2. In-county as stated on Form 3541 ...... 0 0 scale just because they are athletes. As an MIT, and Yale, not a three-way tie as listed.” 3. Other classes mailed through the USPS ...... 0 0 institution focused on teaching and scholar- Legal standing. Grant Glovin was a second- 4. Free or nominal distribution outside the mail ...... 275 0 ship, this is disturbing. A change would take year law student when he wrote the paper E. Total free or nominal distribution...... 452 175 F. Total distribution...... 263,768 266,169 agreement by the Ivy League presidents, and covered in “Land Use and Climate Change” G. Copies not distributed...... 1,792 1,670 H. Total...... 265,560 267,839 I hope Harvard’s president will consider (November-December 2019, page 15), but he Percent paid and/or raising the issue with his Ivy colleagues. had moved up to the third year of his legal requested circulation...... 99.83% 99.93% Thomas Ehrlich ’56, LL.B. ’59 studies by the time the magazine’s article I certify that the information above is true and complete. Irina Kuksin, Publisher Palo Alto was reported and published.

ENGINEERING LIFE products of the altered genes. explains, “because we’re not limited by time (continued from page 41) He has already introduced genes re- or geography, or even by natural DNA.” covered from mammoth DNA as much as The idea is not so farfetched as it might few genes that are completely new, Church 700,000 years old into cultured cell lines. sound: “There’s evidence that there was in- has numerous genetic tools at his disposal Some facilitate blood oxygen release at low terbreeding in the past,” he says. “It’s like to determine their function. He can splice temperatures, others the growth of thick the evidence in the human genome that our genes into other organisms to observe their hair and the accumulation of subcutaneous ancestors interbred with Neanderthals—it’s effects, or silence them to see what chang- fat. Endowed with these genetic gifts, the a pattern with elephants and mammoths.” es then take place, or induce mutations in potential range of the Asian elephant would Besides recently developing (with profes- vitro, to see how that changes the protein expand into frigid areas where the animals sor of genetics Chao-ting Wu) an improved would be far less likely to compete with hu- method for reading ancient DNA, Church Woolly mammoth adaptations to frigid mans for habitat. “We’ll be further increas- has successfully demonstrated the function environments included blood oxygen ing their diversity, possibly even making of two woolly mammoth gene variants that release at low temperatures, the growth of thick hair, and the accumulation of them more genetically diverse than any spe- aid adaptation to a cold environment, and subcutaneous fat for insulation and fasting. cies has been before in that lineage,” Church has plans to modify at least 44 more ele-

74 January - February 2020 Illustrations by Ben Novak/Courtesy of Revive & Restore

Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 George Church Church has successfully demonstrated the function of two woolly mammoth gene variants that aid adaptation to a cold environment and has plans to modify at least 44 more elephant genes. phant genes based on what he has learned optics, they make hard shells, bones, all sorts public, presumably ensuring their steady from mammoths and other sources. of inorganic materials.” Such optimism helps growth. (Sales of the 10 biggest “blockbuster His approach is also pragmatic: he has explain why synthetic biologists dot the de- biologics”—commercial drugs with more thought through business models that might partments of genetics and systems biology at than a billion dollars in sales that are manu- support this effort. “Bison,” he points out, “re- the schools of medicine and engineering and factured with the use of living organisms— turned from near extinction to a population applied sciences. As a transdisciplinary field, already exceed $70 billion annually in the of almost half a million worldwide, largely synthetic biology almost demands collabora- United States, and are obvious candidates because the species has very low-cholesterol tion; more than a few labs do so through the for improvement.) And immunotherapies— meat. Mammoths, or cold-resistant elephants, Wyss Institute, and Church’s lab does, too. modifications to immune cells that enable could support even more business models: The near-term future of synthetic biology, them to recognize and fight diseases such you’ve got tourism, meat, hair (following a and particularly commercial applications, as cancer—are an area of intense research. sheep model of seasonal removal), and maybe are being shaped as much by market forces “I think there’s almost no limit to syn- legal ivory. So there’s a lot more models for (including social acceptance) as by tech- thetic biology,” Church says. “It will help cold-resistant elephants than for bison.” nological advances within the field’s core us build space colonies, it will help us build disciplines of molecular and genetic engi- anything that’s atomically precise. Every- Church is sanguine about the poten- neering, whole-cell, cell-extract, or organ- thing, including circuits, would be better tial of biological engineering to make a bet- ism-level tinkering, and computer modeling. if it were atomically precise—and we can ter world. “It’s easy to get overexcited…be- Although the ethics of human enhancement make things that way. Because that’s what cause everything that’s currently made by and environmental interventions will be de- biology does very well.” non-biological methods—inorganic mate- bated, the often life-saving applications of rials—could be made by biological systems: synthetic biology to medicine and health Jonathan Shaw ’89 is managing editor of Harvard bacteria make magnets, sponges make fiber are not only profitable but embraced by the Magazine.

Harvard Magazine 75

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