Rise of the biological machines
July 21st, 2009 Posted by: admin
This week synthetic biologist Paul Freemont, professor of protein crystallography at Imperial College London, argues that the future lies with highly efficient biological machines capable of manufacturing chemicals and drugs or capturing carbon from the atmosphere.He describes his vision of applying the principles of engineering to create purpose-built organisms from a catalogue of standard components in a controllable and predictable way. Measured against the early progress of electronics, synthetic biologists may still be in the 1950s, but Freemont points to the recent creation of yeast that manufacture the anti-malarial artemisinin and algae that produce biofuel as hopeful signs of what might be possible.Turning our gaze heavenwards, on the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 we speak to the …
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