Side Event
Synthetic Biology: The Implications of "Extreme Genetic Engineering" for Biodiversity and the CBD's programme of work.
Organizer
ETC Group
Date and Time
18 February 2008 13:15 - 14:45
Side-event hosts: ETC Group with participation from Professor Drew Endy, MIT (USA) Enabled by the convergence of biology, computing and engineering, synthetic biology refers to a suite of foundational technologies that permit the design and construction of any specified DNA sequence, allowing the chemical synthesis of entire genes or genomes. The productivity of DNA synthesis technologies has increased 700-fold over the past decade - doubling every 12 months. Virus genomes have already been constructed from scratch. It is estimated that within 5 years it will be possible to synthesize new bacteria; de novo construction of simple eukaryotic genomes should be routine within 5 to 10 years. Thus, within a decade, it may be possible to electronically specify the genome of a complex organism and receive it by mail-order a few days later. As gene and genome synthesis becomes cheaper and faster, it will become easier to synthesize some organisms than to find them in nature or retrieve them from samples stored in labs or freezers. Biological samples, once sequenced and made available in digital form, will move instantaneously across the globe to be reconstructed in labs thousands of miles away. What impact will synthetic biology have on biodiversity? What challenges and opportunities will it create for the CBD's programme of work?