Synthetic Biology - Examples

Examples

Molecular cloning is a method used frequently by geneticists to obtain large quantities of a particular strand of DNA. It involves shaping a selected piece of DNA and inserting it into the DNA of a bacterium called a plasmid. Once the alien DNA is inserted the bacteria is allowed to replicate thus replicating the DNA that it contains. After replication is completed the copies of foreign DNA are separated from the plasmid. In this sense the bacteria becomes a cyborg because a foreign element is introduced and interacts with the bacteria.

The Sleeping Beauty transposon system is an example of an engineered enzyme for inserting precise DNA sequences into genomes of vertebrate animals. The SB transposon is a synthetic sequence that was created based on deriving a consensus sequence of extinct Tc1/mariner-type transposons that are found as evolutionary relics in the genomes of most, if not all, vertebrates. This enzyme took about a year to engineer and since its creation has been used for gene transfer, gene discovery, and gene therapy applications

Biosensor technology is another example of cyborg bacteria. One such sensor created in Oak Ridge National Laboratory and named “critter on a chip” used a coating of bioluminescent bacteria on a light sensitive computer chip to detect certain petroleum pollutants. When the bacteria sense the pollutant, it lights up and is then processed or amplified. In Australia, biosensors have been created to detect viruses, bacteria, hormones, drugs, and DNA sequences. In the future scientists hope to create chips that can sense toxins such as environmental estrogens and warfare agents. Even more recently chemists at the University of Nebraska created a humidity gauge by using gold plated bacteria on a silicon chip. With a decrease in humidity there was an increase in the circuit flow. One unique feature that separates the chip from the bioluminescent ones is that after it has been assimilated the bacteria no longer needs to be kept alive for the humidity gauge to work.

Nanotechnology also has made advances by using bacteria. Researchers at the École polytechnique de Montréal in Canada have attached a microscopic bead to swimming bacteria. Using a magnetic resonance imaging machine (MRI) the researchers have been able to use the magnetic properties of the bacteria to direct it to certain locations. The bead has no purpose at the moment but researchers hope to store drugs or other viral fighting agents inside so that it may be released at the directed location.