Comment

SB4.0 - Moving into commercial ventures

James Brown notes the growing commercial interest in synthetic biology shown at SB4.0 in Hong Kong.

After MIT, Berkeley and last year Zurich, The SB Conference series moved to Asia for the first time in 2008. Over 560 attendees made their way to Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in October for SB4.0, a significant increase on last year’s 300, providing a very powerful reminder of the rapid growth and propagation of Synthetic Biology across the globe.

For me, the key differences this time round were a stronger presence from the recent high-profile SynBio start-ups such as Amyris and Codon Devices and, understandably, a far bigger representation from Asian research institutions. Regarding the start-ups, it was particularly interesting to hear first-hand about the products and applications these new companies are focusing on. While several key points “couldn’t be commented on” and the boundaries between academic pursuit and private profit-orientated science were often blurry, it was the first time I’d heard the likes of Jay Keasling and his Amyris colleagues discuss openly the expected performance of their company’s range of biofuels as well as the business side of their venture.

As in Zurich, plenty of time was given over to the issues of minimal cell construction and whole genome synthesis. There’s no doubt the work undertaken at the Venter Institute and several other institutions is hugely interesting, impressive and has a big part to play in the future of SynBio. However, the bigger question remains – what do we do with this technology and how do we develop engineering rules around it?

It was very noticeable throughout the conference that a far higher proportion of the research on show this year was application-driven. It’s very apparent that as an engineering field, Synthetic Biologists are not simply focusing on fundamental science or development of standards – they are looking to address real-world problems, start
companies and generate wealth. No where was this better illustrated than the “Investment in Synthetic Biology” panel discussion held on the Sunday afternoon. The lecture theatre was packed to the rafters to hear a variety of venture capitalists & recent start-up founders air their views on the right paths and potential pitfalls of taking science from the lab and turning it into a profitable operation. Significantly, when the chair asked how many of the audience was considering a SynBio start-up in the coming years, almost every hand shot up.

That’s not to say of course that the fundamental aspects weren’t addressed and discussed in depth. The two back-to-back roundtable discussions on Saturday morning regarding “Standardisation of Parts” were particularly relevant to the network’s objectives. Emma’s in-depth report should certainly be looked at by all Network members who weren’t at the sessions. Of particular interest and relevance was the initial steps that have been taken by Jason Kelly and Kim de Mora to characterise promoters, comparing a range of measurement techniques, media conditions and basic parts.

I feel very strongly that for all the discussion on standards, we are still massively short of real data. Jason’s efforts to establish a ratio-metric measurement kit will hopefully prove the catalyst for more of us to unify our measurement methods and produce relevant data that can be used reliably across labs without the need to repeat
characterisation of parts. I genuinely feel we need more examples of well-characterised parts beyond the much-quoted F2620 device and need to show categorically they can be used in combination before we get too bogged down in measurement standards discussion. The sessions highlighted the relatively small number of researchers, mostly postgraduate students, who are practically directing their time to part characterisation and standardisation of measurement techniques. Hopefully resources can be allocated to address this issue via a unified and large-scale approach, but it is a big undertaking and one with no obvious source of funds. The potential benefits to the field and community are huge, but with a large research institution unlikely to take on such a challenge, it’s still down to the handful of researchers at the sessions to continue to chip away in an ad-hoc fashion.

With the 3-day programme sporting all the big names in the field, the newcomers to the field (and there were many) were treated to a
tour-de-force of impressive science and engineering, that will no doubt inspire researchers across the world and our Asian colleagues in particular to immerse themselves in SynBio in the coming years. While the parallel session-based programme offered plenty of options I did find myself having to make difficult choices and miss sessions that I’d have loved to attend but clashed with higher priority ones – they should all be online soon however, so I look forward to catching those I missed.

As is inevitable with a community as relatively new and small as SynBio’s, I couldn’t help myself thinking I’d seen much of the research presented before – this served to emphasise that it does take a long time to make significant progress with such projects. In fairness I have had the privilege of attending a large number of SynBio meets these last few years. In view of this, I spent much of my time in the smaller discussion-orientated sessions and taking in the huge number of posters, which totalled nearly 200. One particular poster from researchers in Ron Weiss's lab caught my eye for obvious reasons, given my own PhD project. They have managed to achieve artificial patterning using a reaction-diffusion system in bacteria, synthetically employing the rhl and las systems from Pseudomonas. This serves as a proof-of-principle that artifical patterning systems are realisable and provides reassurances for our own work in gram-positive bacteria and plants here in the UK.

Ultimately SB4.0 proved a very worthwhile experience and an unrivaled opportunity to catch up with our US and European colleagues in the SynBio community. Face-to-face meet-ups like this one make such a difference when it comes to the development of physical, design and measurement standards and I’m very much looking forward to SB5.0 and the chance to interact with our growing global community once again.