Abstract
The following essay was written by a freshman undergraduate student majoring in Bioengineering at the University of Maryland, Mr. Zachary Russ. Mr. Russ was one of 94 students who submitted a 1000 to 1200 word essay to the 3rd Annual Bioethics Essay Contest sponsored by the Institute of Biological Engineering (IBE). A group of professionals in Biological Engineering assessed and ranked the essays in a blinded process. Five semi-finalists were invited to present their essays at a session at the annual meeting of IBE in Chapel Hill, NC on March 8, 2008. Five judges scored the presentations at the annual meeting and selected Mr. Russ's contribution as the overall winner (1st Place). Below is his essay.
Highlights
Bioengineering, for all of its accomplishments, still has yet to create life to fit the same sort of precise specifications that chemical engineers have done with molecules and that mechanical engineers have with machines
Synbio is epitomized by the BioBricks project, which attempts to create life from scratch with clearly defined and understood interactions between each engineered gene
One success of the BioBricks approach is the complete rewrite of the T7 bacteriophage, which behaves much like the original, but in a very predictable fashion [1]
Summary
The BioBricks project takes the former approach, and, by designing organisms using standardized building blocks, makes genetic engineering easier and much more efficient. Compared to organisms created using previous genetic engineering methods, synthetic organisms are much safer, because they lack the survival techniques found in nature, and because they are better understood. While the accessibility of BioBricks makes regulation difficult, synthetic biology is (and will probably continue to be) a long way from a basement technology. Those who would wish to visit destruction on the human race have much easier, more convenient tools available.
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