The economic principles of industrial synthetic biology: cosmogony, metabolism and commodities
The economic principles of industrial synthetic biology: cosmogony, metabolism and commodities
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工业合成生物学的经济原理：宇宙起源、新陈代谢和商品
DOI：
10.1080/19378629.2013.764880
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发表时间：
2013
影响因子：
1.7
通讯作者：
A. Mackenzie
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
A. Mackenzie
合成生物学是将工程原理应用于（基因组）生物学。但在工业合成生物学中，除了广泛讨论的抽象、模块化、解耦和标准化等工程原则外，我们还看到了许多其他情境化实践，通过这些实践，工程项目获得了可信度和可实现性。本文讨论了如何合成生物学家工作的下一代生物燃料构建一个经济演算的生物形式。当他们修改微生物以从植物、废气和阳光中制造燃料，或者将新的代谢途径引入生物体时，他们也创造了将经济和代谢过程联系起来的新故事，他们以各种形式为合成生物学增添了新的背景，从全球气候变化、石油峰值、粮食安全、美国外交政策到时尚和饮食。Joule Unlimited、Amyris Technologies、Synthetic Genomics、Solazyme和Aurora Algae等知名的下一代生物燃料公司提供的例子说明了宇宙起源梦想、代谢等效和供应链中断的原则如何将地球生命的起源、太阳辐射通量、微生物的最佳代谢通量以及石油、棕榈油或糖的价格联系起来。这种经济演算既将工程实践与多种生命形式联系起来，又创造了一个合成生物学前所未有的空间。
Synthetic biology has been presented as the application of engineering principles to (genomic) biology. But in industrial synthetic biology, alongside the much discussed engineering principles of abstraction, modularity, de-coupling and standardisation, we see many other practices of contextualisation through which engineering projects accrue credibility and realisability. This paper discusses how synthetic biologists working on next-generation biofuels construct an economic calculus for biological forms. As they modify microbes to make fuel from plants, waste gases and sunlight, or introduce new metabolic pathways into organisms, they also create novel stories that link economic and metabolic processes, and they attach new contexts to synthetic biology in various forms ranging from global climate change, peak oil, food security, US foreign policy, through to fashion and diet. Examples drawn from well-known next-generation biofuels companies such as Joule Unlimited, Amyris Technologies, Synthetic Genomics, Solazyme and Aurora Algae illustrate how principles of cosmogonic dreaming, metabolic equivalence and supply chain disruption strain to connect the origins of life on earth, the flux of solar radiation, the optimal metabolic flux in a microbe and the prices of petroleum, palm oil or sugar. This economic calculus both connects engineering practice to a plurality of life forms, and creates a space in which synthetic biology can appear as unprecedented.