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Nanotech and synbio: Americans don't know what's coming
September 30, 2008Landmark poll shows little knowledge of emerging technologies
Washington, DC -- A groundbreaking poll finds that almost half of U.S. adults have heard nothing about nanotechnology, and nearly nine in 10 Americans say they have heard just a little or nothing at all about the emerging field of synthetic biology, according to a new report released by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) and Peter D. Hart Research. Both technologies involve manipulating matter at an incredibly small scale to achieve something new.
This new insight into limited public awareness of emerging technologies comes as a major leadership change is about to take hold in the nation's capital. Public policy experts are concerned, regardless of party, that the federal government is behind the curve in engaging citizens on the potential benefits and risks posed by technologies that could have a significant impact on society.
"Early in the administration of the next president, scientists are expected to take the next major step toward the creation of synthetic forms of life. Yet the results from the first U.S. telephone poll about synthetic biology show that most adults have heard just a little or nothing at all about it," says PEN Director David Rejeski. The poll findings are contained a report published today, The American Public's Awareness Of And Perceptions About Potential Risks and Benefits of Nanotechnology & Synthetic Biology, and available at: http://www.nanotechproject.org/n/synbio_poll . This page is limited access until the embargo is lifted. Login: synbio Password: advance
Synthetic biology is the use of advanced science and engineering to construct or re-design living organisms--like bacteria--so that they can carry out specific functions. This emerging technology is likely to develop rapidly in the coming years, much as nanotechnology did in the last decade. In the near future the first synthetic biology "blockbuster" drug is anticipated to hit the market--an affordable treatment for the 500 million people in the world suffering from malaria.
The poll, which was conducted by the same firm that produces the well-known NBC News/Wall Street Journal polls, found that about two-thirds of adults say they have heard nothing at all about synthetic biology, and only 2 percent say they have heard "a lot" about the new technology. Even with this very low level of awareness, a solid two-thirds of adults are willing to express an initial opinion on the potential benefits versus risks tradeoff of synthetic biology.
This survey was informed by two focus groups conducted in August in suburban Baltimore. This is the first time--to the pollsters' knowledge--that synthetic biology has been the subject of a representative national telephone survey.
At the same time, the poll found that about half of adults say they have heard nothing at all about nanotechnology. About 50 percent of adults are too unsure about nanotechnology to make an initial judgment on the possible tradeoffs between benefits and risks. Of those people who are willing to make an initial judgment, they think benefits will outweigh risks by a three to one margin when compared to those who believe risks will outweigh benefits. The plurality of respondents, however, believes that risks and benefits will be about equal. A major industry forecasting firm determined that last year nanotech goods in the global marketplace totaled $147 billion. According to the poll, the level of U.S. public awareness about nanotechnology has not changed measurably since 2004 when Hart Research conducted the first poll on the topic on behalf of the PEN.
Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies
"Early in the administration of the next president, scientists are expected to take the next major step toward the creation of synthetic forms of life. Yet the results from the first U.S. telephone poll about synthetic biology show that most adults have heard just a little or nothing at all about it," says PEN Director David Rejeski. The poll findings are contained a report published today, The American Public's Awareness Of And Perceptions About Potential Risks and Benefits of Nanotechnology & Synthetic Biology, and available at: http://www.nanotechproject.org/n/synbio_poll . This page is limited access until the embargo is lifted. Login: synbio Password: advance
Synthetic biology is the use of advanced science and engineering to construct or re-design living organisms--like bacteria--so that they can carry out specific functions. This emerging technology is likely to develop rapidly in the coming years, much as nanotechnology did in the last decade. In the near future the first synthetic biology "blockbuster" drug is anticipated to hit the market--an affordable treatment for the 500 million people in the world suffering from malaria.
The poll, which was conducted by the same firm that produces the well-known NBC News/Wall Street Journal polls, found that about two-thirds of adults say they have heard nothing at all about synthetic biology, and only 2 percent say they have heard "a lot" about the new technology. Even with this very low level of awareness, a solid two-thirds of adults are willing to express an initial opinion on the potential benefits versus risks tradeoff of synthetic biology.
This survey was informed by two focus groups conducted in August in suburban Baltimore. This is the first time--to the pollsters' knowledge--that synthetic biology has been the subject of a representative national telephone survey.
At the same time, the poll found that about half of adults say they have heard nothing at all about nanotechnology. About 50 percent of adults are too unsure about nanotechnology to make an initial judgment on the possible tradeoffs between benefits and risks. Of those people who are willing to make an initial judgment, they think benefits will outweigh risks by a three to one margin when compared to those who believe risks will outweigh benefits. The plurality of respondents, however, believes that risks and benefits will be about equal. A major industry forecasting firm determined that last year nanotech goods in the global marketplace totaled $147 billion. According to the poll, the level of U.S. public awareness about nanotechnology has not changed measurably since 2004 when Hart Research conducted the first poll on the topic on behalf of the PEN.
Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies
Synthetic Biology Current Events and Synthetic Biology News RSSUnderstanding a cell's split personality aids synthetic circuits
As scientists work toward making genetically altered bacteria create living "circuits" to produce a myriad of useful proteins and chemicals, they have logically assumed that the single-celled organisms would always respond to an external command in the same way.
With a flash of light, a neuron's function is revealed
There's a new way to explore biology's secrets. With a flash of light, scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley zeroed in on the type of neural cell that controls swimming in larval zebrafish.
UCSF researchers program cells to be remote-controlled by light
UCSF researchers have genetically encoded mouse cells to respond to light, creating cells that can be trained to follow a light beam or stop on command like microscopic robots.
Researchers rapidly turn bacteria into biotech factories
High-throughput sequencing has turned biologists into voracious genome readers, enabling them to scan millions of DNA letters, or bases, per hour.
Genetically engineered bacteria compute the route
US researchers have created 'bacterial computers' with the potential to solve complicated mathematics problems.
Finding the constant in bacterial communication
The Rosetta Stone of bacterial communication may have been found. Although they have no sensory organs, bacteria can get a good idea about what's going on in their neighborhood and communicate with each other, mainly by secreting and taking in chemicals from their surrounding environment.
Boston University biomedical engineers teach bacteria to count
Biomedical engineers at Boston University have taught bacteria how to count. Professor James J. Collins and colleagues have wired a new sequence of genes that allow the microbes to count discrete events, opening the door for a host of potential applications, which could include drug delivery and sensing environmental hazards.
Research team finds important role for junk DNA
Scientists have called it "junk DNA." They have long been perplexed by these extensive strands of genetic material that dominate the genome but seem to lack specific functions.
Using combinatorial libraries to engineer genetic circuits advances synthetic biology
Streamlining the construction of synthetic gene networks has led a team of Boston University researchers to develop a technique that couples libraries of diversified components with computer modeling to guide predictable gene network construction without the back and forth tweaking.
Synthetic biology: The next biotech revolution is brewing
The safety of early applications of synthetic biology may be adequately addressed by the existing regulatory framework for biotechnology, especially in contained laboratories and manufacturing facilities.
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Systems Biology and Synthetic Biology by Pengcheng Fu (Editor), Sven Panke (Editor) The genomic revolution has opened up systematic investigations and engineering designs for various life forms. Systems biology and synthetic biology are emerging as two complementary approaches, which embody the breakthrough in biology and invite application of engineering principles. Systems Biology and Synthetic Biology emphasizes the similarity between biology and engineering at the system level, which is important for applying systems and engineering theories to biology problems. This book demonstrates to students, researchers, and industry that systems biology relies on synthetic biology technologies to study biological systems, while synthetic biology depends on knowledge obtained from systems biology approaches. |
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What Is Life?: Investigating the Nature of Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology by Ed Regis (Author) Erwin Schrodinger's 1944 classic What Is Life? is a small book that occupies a large place among the great written works of the twentieth century. It is said that it helped launch the modern revolution in biology and genetics, and inspired a generation of scientists, including Watson and Crick, to explore the riddle of life itself. Now, more than sixty years later, science writer Ed Regis offers an intriguing look at where this quest stands today. Regis ranges widely here, illuminating many diverse efforts to solve one of science's great mysteries. He examines the genesis of Schrodinger's great book--which first debuted as three public lectures in Dublin--and details the fantastic reception his ideas received, both in Europe and America. Regis also introduces us to the... |
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The Emergence of Life: From Chemical Origins to Synthetic Biology by Pier Luigi Luisi (Author) The origin of life from inanimate matter has been the focus of much research for decades, both experimentally and philosophically. Luisi takes the reader through the consecutive stages from prebiotic chemistry to synthetic biology, uniquely combining both approaches. This book presents a systematic course discussing the successive stages of self-organisation, emergence, self-replication, autopoiesis, synthetic compartments and construction of cellular models, in order to demonstrate the spontaneous increase in complexity from inanimate matter to the first cellular life forms. A chapter is dedicated to each of these steps, using a number of synthetic and biological examples. With end of chapter review questions to aid reader comprehension, this book will appeal to graduate students and... |
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Drew Endy vs. Jim Thomas: Synthetic Biology Debate Starring: Jim Thomas Drew Endy Directed By: Shoulder High Production Chris Baldwin Also With: Stewart Brand and the Long Now Foundation (Producer) Bioengineer Drew Endy is the leading enabler of open-source biotechnology. Technology activist Jim Thomas is the leading critic of biotech, based with the ETC Group in Ottawa. Synthetic biology is swarming ahead all over the world, at a self-accelerating pace far greater than Moore's Law, with a range of impacts far greater than genetically engineered food crops. Endy and Thomas debate the question: Is synthetic biology reckless or wise from the perspective of "the long now?" This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply. |
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Synthetic Biology: the technoscience and its societal consequences by Markus Schmidt (Editor), Alexander Kelle (Editor), Agomoni Ganguli-Mitra (Editor), Huib de Vriend (Editor) Synthetic biology is becoming one of the most dynamic new fields of biology, with the potential to revolutionize the way we do biotechnology today. By applying the toolbox of engineering disciplines to biology, a whole set of potential applications become possible ranging very widely across scientific and engineering disciplines. Some of the potential benefits of synthetic biology, such as the development of low-cost drugs or the production of chemicals and energy by engineered bacteria are enormous. There are, however, also potential and perceived risks due to deliberate or accidental damage. Also, ethical issues of synthetic biology just start being explored, with hardly any ethicists specifically focusing on the area of synthetic biology. This book will be the first of its kind... |
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Genome Refactoring (Synthesis Lectures on Synthetic Biology) by Natalie Kuldell (Author), Neal Lerner (Author) The science of biology celebrates the discovery and understanding of biological systems that already exist in nature. In parallel, the engineering of biology must learn how to make use of our understanding of the natural world to design and build new useful biological systems. "Synthetic biology" represents one example of recent work to engineer biological systems. This emerging field aims to replace the ad hoc process of assembling biological systems by primarily developing tools to assemble reliable-but-complex living organisms from standard components that can later be reused in new combination. The focus of this book is "genome refactoring," one of several approaches to manage the complexity of a biological system in which the goal is to redesign the genetic elements that encode a... |
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Concepts and Engineering in Synthetic Biosensing (Synthesis Lectures on Synthetic Biology) by Jan Van Der Meer (Author), Martyn Amos (Editor) | |
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An Introduction to Systems Biology: Design Principles of Biological Circuits (Chapman & Hall/Crc Mathematical and Computational Biology) by Uri Alon (Author) Thorough and accessible, this book presents the design principles of biological systems, and highlights the recurring circuit elements that make up biological networks. It provides a simple mathematical framework which can be used to understand and even design biological circuits. The textavoids specialist terms, focusing instead on several well-studied biological systems that concisely demonstrate key principles. An Introduction to Systems Biology: Design Principles of Biological Circuits builds a solid foundation for the intuitive understanding of general principles. It encourages the reader to ask why a system is designed in a particular way and then proceeds to answer with simplified models. |
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Hierarchical Structures in Biology as a Guide for New Materials Technology (Nmab, 464) by Committee on Synthetic Hierarchical Structures (Author), Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems (Author), National Research Council (Author) Broad range of functions are represented in biological systems. Also concentrates on structural material systems. Paper. |
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