'Seeing' SynBio

For millennia, humankind has been manipulating the world around us. Plants have become crops, animals have become pets, and now innovations in synthetic biology mean we can fast track this manipulation and possibly even change ourselves. Synthetic biology is rapidly evolving and gives great media copy, with tales of gene therapy hopes, CRISPR conundrums and Silicon Valley “biohacking”- big concepts with potentially far-reaching consequences. Here in Edinburgh, we have the ability to design and build huge numbers of DNA parts (aided by robots!), we simply need to test them.

Proteins perform many functions in all living organisms. They can have many different properties – from silk, to horn, to hair, to hormones, to haemoglobin (makes blood red). I will talk about what proteins do in our bodies and what happens when they go wrong. I will also talk about how, by manipulating the DNA of an organism, we can produce proteins of biomedical importance, including insulin, anti-cancer therapeutics and more.