Opinionmbt_161 134..135

Paving the way for synthetic biology-basedbioremediation in Europe

Manuel Porcar1,2 and Andrés Moya1,3,4*1Institut Cavanilles de Biodiversitat i Biologia Evolutiva,Universitat de València, València, Spain.2Fundació General de la Universitat de València,València, Spain.3Centro Superior de Investigación en Salud Pública(CSISP), València, Spain.4CIBER en Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBEResp),Barcelona, Spain.

Synthetic biology (SB) has a dual definition. It is both thedesign and construction of new biological parts, devicesand systems, and also the re-design of existing, naturalsystems for useful purposes. The latter field is maybe oneof the major challenges within this discipline, since thepromising prospect that biological systems may be used asbiomachines will certainly be exploited in the near future.

Synthetic biology has challenging conceptual pos-sibilities (Moya et al., 2009a) and impressive progresshas already been made in biotechnology following SBapproaches (de Lorenzo and Danchin, 2008). Much moreis expected in the near future from current efforts aimingto make synthetic genomes for minimal cells to be appliedin biomedical, bioremediation or bioenergy applications(Moya et al., 2009b). In addition to standard academicresearch, the growing success of the International Geneti-cally Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition organizedby the Massachusetts Institute of Technology demon-strates how diverse the practical applications of evenrelatively simple SB projects can be.

Synthetic biology is more a framework than a discipline,as it deals with the rational combination of biological pro-perties with central elements of engineering design.Although a living organism cannot be simplified as themere sum of its parts (Peretó and Català, 2007), the factis that these parts can indeed be used as heterologousfunctional elements for a wide range of biotechnologicalapplications. Thus, by merging the biotechnologicaltoolbox already available with disciplines such as electri-cal, mechanical, or chemical engineering and computer

sciences, there is an extraordinary opportunity to take afresh approach to many biotechnological problems,including long-standing environmental pollution, through avigorous application of modelling techniques and organiz-ing the development of novel biological (e.g. catalytic)systems within a hierarchical architecture with definedand standardized interfaces. The success of this objectivewould not only apply to bioremediation but also to manytechnologies that could benefit from a à la carte per-formance of engineered living systems. However, thisendeavour faeces three major obstacles that have, up todate, hampered the development of an SB-based frame-work for bioremediation: (i) the new field is still missing acomprehensive language and a shared conceptual frame-work for the description of minimally functional biologicalparts (specifically dealing with catalytic properties andregulatory circuits); (ii) scientists and technicians respon-sible for the application of SB to environmental issues(i.e. environmental biotechnologists, bioinformaticiansand experts on the origin-of-life topic), particularly inEurope, have so far failed to recognize their latent capac-ity to shape a brand-new discipline within their very scope,probably because of a lack of common technical languageand tools; and (iii) promotion of SB might touch uponsocial sensitivities related to recreating ‘life-in-the-test-tube’, which threatens a re-enactment of the controversystirred up by GMOs. Indeed, the difficulties encounteredregarding public opinion of GMOs should serve as thestrongest incentive to set up clear and transparent SBtechnical and ethical frameworks and establish the basisof a constructive dialogue between scientists and societyon the risks and benefits of this new discipline. Unfortu-nately, we forecast that future development of bio-remediation and any other technology based on SB willcertainly be affected by the public’s negative perception,due to both its nature (a combination of living beings andhuman manipulation which is homologous to that of bio-technology), and its name: as Kenneth A. Oye stressed,the term synthetic (artificial) biology could almost havebeen calculated to cause a strongly negative response(http://www.synbiosafe.eu/).

Research on SB is almost solely performed in devel-oped countries. There are currently 184 identified sites in

Received 27 October, 2009; revised 6 November, 2009; accepted 9November, 2009. *For correspondence. E-mail andres.moya@uv.es;Tel. (+34) 96 3543480; Fax (+34) 963 543670.

Microbial Biotechnology (2010) 3(2), 134–135 doi:10.1111/j.1751-7915.2009.00161.x

© 2009 The AuthorsJournal compilation © 2009 Society for Applied Microbiology and Blackwell Publishing Ltd

the USA and 51 in Europe along with several researchcentres in Japan and China exploring this emerging dis-cipline (http://www.synbioproject.org/). Synthetic biology-focused universities, companies, research institutions andpolicy centres are, however, prone to work independentlyand coordinated efforts have only recently started. Oneexample of these is the programme entitled TargetingEnvironmental Pollution with Engineered MicrobialSystems à la carte (hereafter, TARPOL) led by the Uni-versitat de València and composed of a total of 18partners (http://www.sb-tarpol.eu/), which is currentlydeveloping a dynamic two-year programme of activities,run by a large collection of European stakeholders in thefield and aimed at coordinating the so-far fragmentedefforts to channel this emerging discipline into the mostindustrially beneficial and socially viable directions.

A major obstacle for full development of SB in Europe isthe lack of a critical mass of synthetic biologists. Thus,the energization and mobilization of a large portion ofEuropean scientific, technical and social professionals toempower a new capacity to exploit properties present inBiological Systems for the prevention, monitoring andremediation of environmental pollution is imperative. Inthis context, TARPOL has already been successful inrecruiting the necessary environmental competencesfrom neighbouring disciplines and developing numerousmaterial and computational resources for advancedre-factoring of biological systems (Jimenez et al., 2002).Furthermore, TARPOL has progressed in laying the foun-dations of SB, particularly on genome reduction strategiesincluding a novel view of living organisms as informationtraps (Danchin, 2009; Moya et al., 2009b).

The current pool of senior scientists, however, will cer-tainly not be enough to achieve the goal of a critical massof synthetic biologists. This is why the TARPOL consor-tium intends to pay particular attention to education. ATARPOL-supported team of students led by University ofValencia and Universidad Politécnica de Valencia partici-pated in the international iGEM competition that tookplace in Cambridge (Massachusetts) in November 2008with an SB project on thermogenesis in genetically modi-fied yeast (Delás et al., 2009). Interestingly, 10 out of the18 gold medals of the 2008 competition were awardedto European teams (three teams from UK; two fromGermany and the Netherlands; and one from Belgium,Spain and Slovenia), and 11 out of the 19 prizes also wentto teams from our continent, including the Grand Prizeawarded to Slovenia for an outstanding SB-based devel-opment of a vaccine against Helicobacter pylori infection.The potential of SB in Europe was further demonstrated inthe recent 2009 iGEM edition when all the six finalistswere European teams (Groningen, Heidelberg, London,Valencia, Freiburg and Cambridge; the latter winner of theGrand Prize).

International Genetically Engineered Machine is only afraction of the teaching efforts that TARPOL is making inorder to spread SB. In fact, during the last year, severalcourses were organized by TARPOL partners: Universitéde Lausanne organized a student’s block on SyntheticBiology for Biology students in their second year, withinthe ‘Biology and Society’ programme; Imperial CollegeLondon organized a Master in Systems and SyntheticBiology; University of Evry (France) a European Master inSystems and Synthetic Biology; and ETH Zurich (Switzer-land) an MSc in Biotechnology focused on SB (moreinformation on these courses can be found at http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/systemsbiology, http://www.mssb.frand http://www.bsse.ethz.ch/education/msc). Finally,TARPOL will organize two major training events, in theform of intensive SB Summer Schools to be held inValencia (Spain) and Basel (Switzerland) in Spring andSummer 2010 respectively.

Mobilization, interdisciplinary collaboration and training:the objectives of TARPOL concerning SB converge into asingle goal: to set up this brand-new discipline that mayhave revolutionary effects on our lives, in Europe. Achiev-ing such objectives will be a key step to implementing apowerful, sustainable knowledge-based bio-economy inour old continent.

Acknowledgements

This work has been funded by European Community’sSeventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-13) under grantagreement number 212894. The authors are very grateful toFabiola Barraclough for the correction of the English text.

References

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Delás, J., Notari, M., Forés, J., Pechuan, J., Porcar, M.,Navarro, E., et al. (2009) Yeast cultures with UCP1 uncou-pling activity as a heating device. N Biotechnol 26: 300–306.

Jimenez, J.I., Minambres, B., Garcia, J.L., and Díaz, E.(2002) Genomic analysis of the aromatic catabolicpathways from Pseudomonas putida KT2440. EnvironMicrobiol 4: 824–841.

de Lorenzo, V., and Danchin, A. (2008) Synthetic biology:discovering new worlds and new words. EMBO Rep 9:822–827.

Moya, A., Krasnogor, N., Peretó, J., and Latorre, A. (2009a)Goethe’s dream. Challenges and opportunities for syn-thetic biology. EMBO Rep 10: 28–32.

Moya, A., Gil, R., Latorre, A., Peretó, J., Garcillán-Barcia,M.P., and de la Cruz, F. (2009b) Toward minimal bacterialcells: evolution vs. design. FEMS Microbiol Rev 33: 225–235.

Peretó, J., and Català, J. (2007) The renaissance of syntheticbiology. Biol Theor 2: 128–130.

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© 2009 The AuthorsJournal compilation © 2009 Society for Applied Microbiology and Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Microbial Biotechnology, 3, 134–135