DBT Draft Paper on Synthetic Biology

February 21, 2022

Department of Biotechnology has released a draft foresight paper on synthetic biology. In its paper, department has stressed on the need for a national policy to consolidate India’s stand on the issue.

Highlights

This 70-page document also notes that, India should avoid conflicting stands on science and policy.
It looks not only at global policies and protocols that must be refer to develop such a policy but also defines synthetic biology and how intellectual property rights will be applicable in resulting processes and products.
The paper was developed through a consultative process with experts from several organisations, non-profit organisations, and some people from the industry.
It will help in creating a national policy.

What is Synthetic Biology?

Synthetic Biology refers to “science of using genetic sequencing, modification and editing, in order to create unnatural organisms or organic molecules which can function in living systems. Synthetic biology helps the scientists in designing and synthesising new sequences of DNA from scratch.

Application of Synthetic biology

Synthetic biology finds its applications across various fields, viz.,

Developing synthetic organisms for vaccination
Creating natural products in a lab like vanillin, which is the organic compound extracted from vanilla seeds. These seeds can be grown in yeasts with additional plant genomes.
In pharmaceutical industry, synthetic biology can be used for make natural compounds like artemisinin and Car T cell therapy. Artemisinin is used to treatment of malaria while Car T cell therapy is used to treat cancer.
It will be used in fashion industry as well. Some companies are looking after the possibility of dyeing jeans without producing hazardous waste.
Companies are also using it to deliver fixed nitrogen to plants instead of fertilisers and engineering microbes for creating food additives or brew proteins.

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