DBT Draft Paper on Synthetic Biology

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 stage on the issue.

What’s 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 scrape.
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 performing processes and products.
• The paper was developed through a consultative process with experts from several organisations,non-profit organisations, and some people from the assiduity.
• It’ll help in creating a national policy.

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

1. Developing synthetic organisms for vaccination.
2. 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.
3. In pharmaceutical industry, synthetic biology can be used for make natural composites like artemisinin and Auto T cell therapy. Artemisinin is used to treatment of malaria while Car T cell therapy is used to treat cancer.
4. It’ll be used in fashion assiduity as well. Some companies are looking after the possibility of dyeing jeans without producing dangerous waste.
5. Companies are also using it to deliver fixed nitrogen to shops rather of fertilisers and engineering microbes for creating food complements or pop proteins.