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Essay PRA2010 Synthetic Biology
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MSC Coverpage AssignmentName of the Tutor: Dr. Erik Steen Redeker
Course code: PRA2010
Course Title: Synthetic biology
Course Coordinator: Dr. Erik Steen Redeker
Tutorial Group Number: Tutorial 01 (Thursday group)
Student Names: Likhitha Puliyadi
Student ID nr.: i6180063
Academic Year: 2020-2021
Number of Words: 2302 (excluding references)
Title Assignment: Bioethics in synthetic biology
Pigeon Hole nr.: 373
Date: 1/12/20 Signature: Likhitha Puliyadi
, Bioethical implications in synthetic
biology-
1. Introduction to the synthetic biology field-
Synthetic biology is a continually growing tree with its roots spread across various recombinant
DNA focused scientific disciplines. It particularly uses molecular biology and engineering
toolboxes alongside microbiological methods. In return to using knowledge from other
disciplines, it also bears fruits of knowledge that answer their problems with a unique
perspective or more efficient approaches to their problems. This is possible because synthetic
biology differentiates itself from other disciplines by using de novo synthesis of deoxyribonucleic
acid (DNA), that is constructing new DNA without using a template strand. The de novo DNA
synthesises can take place either by using another organism’s DNA parts or combining
synthetically created DNA parts to create a new DNA strand. This specifically differentiates
synthetic biology from its sister field, genetic engineering, that solely modifies a handful genes in
already existing genes in the organism (Hewett et al., 2016).
Synthetic biology uses the design-build-test cycle, illustrated in Fig.1. The designing aspect
involves the assembling of different DNA parts to create a DNA device that would meet the
study objective. These DNA devices are then built into host organisms. Until now the de novo
synthesis involved synthesis of short synthetic segments, but only a few complete new
organisms were built. Therefore, synthetic biology can be best described to be an aspiration to
write the entire genome of an organism from scratch in order to create new organisms that can
be instructed. There are several limitations that do not allow this now, for instance, lack of
technology or knowledge on the pathways in that particular host. Lastly, the implemented design
in the desired organism is tested for its success (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering,
and Medicine, 2018). The testing process is ongoing, after the functionality of the device is
determined, it is constantly modified and built again if necessary to increase the efficiency.
The beginning of synthetic biology can be traced back to the 1970s, with the advent of
recombinant DNA technologies in the early days of genetic engineering. rDNA was formed with
a combination of DNA segments from various organisms, and was the first effort to manipulate
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