The Sounds of Science
"Recently, Chafe's interests have turned to the microscopic world of cells and DNA. As part of Synthetic Aesthetics, a program co-led by assistant professor of bioengineering Drew Endy, Chafe was paired with Mariana Leguia,...
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States of Design 07: Bio-design
Technological biology?: Things and kinds in synthetic biology
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Abstract: Social scientific and humanistic research on synthetic biology has focused quite narrowly on questions of epistemology and ELSI. I suggest that to understand this discipline in its full scope, researchers must turn to the objects of...
Drop That Pipette: Science By Design
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"An unexpected collaboration between a synthetic biology lab at UCSF and a Palo Alto-based design firm is stirring up the way that research is conceived and conducted, by integrating...
Diversity By Design
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"The recent Nature paper from...
The Changing Nature of Things
Training Bacteria To Grow Consumer Goods
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"Thinkers at IDEO are working with scientists to find a way to have E. coli bacteria form objects--like a coffee cup--when exposed to light. It's nature's version of...
Genetic Green Thumbs: Growing Plants Engineered For Their Field
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"Farmers of the future may be able to use plants as sensors that encode information about their environmental conditions in their own DNA. Then...
Growth Spurt
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As building technology races ahead, science propels it to help meet new and ever-changing standards. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the breakneck tempo of progress was fueled largely by physics and chemistry, delivering a host of...
Visions of Synthetic Biology
Standing reserves of function: A Heideggerian reading of synthetic biology
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Synthetic biology, an emerging field of science and technology, intends to make of the natural world a substrate for engineering practice. Drawing inspiration from conventional engineering disciplines, practitioners of synthetic biology hope to...
Bacterial Culture
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"Using everything from briefcases full of rainbow-coloured excrement to DIY genetic modification kits, cutting-edge artists are revolutionizing the way we look at science."...
Point of View: David Benjamin
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"Pioneering architect and teacher David Benjamin tinkers at the crossroads of design and biology, exploring the possibilities of both mimicking and literally harnessing life to...
Spiel mit Genen und Genesis
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Auch Künstler entdecken die synthetische Biologie – und entwerfen das Design von morgen. Was früher Holz, Metall, Kunststoff oder die Videokunst waren, das könnte morgen das Leben selbst sein.
Es...
On Biotechnology Without Borders
Biologists have become engineers of the living world. By making their bioengineered solutions to global problems openly available, we can transform the developing world.
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The Irrational Genome Design Contest
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“A myth is a lie that tells the truth,” says Arshia Sattar, Sanskrit scholar and expert on Indian mythology to a group of teenage art and design students from Bangalore entering iGEM, MIT’s annual International Genetically Engineered Machine...
Illusions of Control
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"The concept of the single engineering paradigm indicates a future in which the control of matter and life would be achieved by applying engineering principals; through nanotechnology, synthetic biology and, as some suggest, cognitive- and...
Synthetic Aesthetics, exploring the territory between art, design and synthetic biology
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Interview with Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg
Regine: "...Synthetic biology is a bit of a daunting area of research. It seems to be highly technical and almost too abstract. How much background in...
Resources
Synthetic Biology
Syntheticbiology.org
Hosted by OpenWetWare, a good starting point.
OpenWetWare
Wiki site to promote the sharing of information among researchers working in biology & biological engineering.
BioBricks Foundation
A not-for-profit organization founded by engineers and scientists from MIT, Harvard, and UCSF. BBF encourages the development and responsible use of technologies based on BioBrick™ standard DNA parts.
iGEM
International Genetically Engineered Machines Competition, the undergraduate Synthetic Biology competition.
SynBERC
The Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center is a multi-institution research effort: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, UC Berkely, UCSF.
Ars Synthetica
Human practices research into ethics and synthetic biology.
BioFab
The world's first biological design-build facility.
Synthetic Biology Standards Network
An interdisciplinary network for UK academics working in synthetic biology, primarily concerned with issues relating to standards and characterisation.
Synbio.org.uk
Synthetic Biology resources from Cambridge University.
Centre for Synthetic Biology
Imperial College, London.
Royal Society
Synthetic Biology and Systems Biology Gateway, Journal of the Royal Society.
Synbio Project
Research project that aims to foster informed public and policy discourse concerning the advancement of synthetic biology, at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
The Hastings Center
US-based bioethics think tank researching philosophy and ethics of synthetic biology.
J.Craig Venter Insitutute synbio policy research
Synthetic Genomics: Options for Governance, research funded by the Sloan Foundation.
SYBHEL
Bristol research into medical aspects of synbio, part of a European-wide research initiative. Synthetic Components Network.
DIYbio
Community for citizen biology.
Synthesis.cc
Synbio commentator Rob Carlson's blog.
Design/Art and Science
E.chromi
A collaboration between designers Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg
& James King and the 2009 winning Cambridge University iGem team.
Read a student's perspective and a designer's perspective.
Hackteria
A web resource for projects that involve DIY bioart, open source software and electronic experimentation.
ArtScience Bangalore
iGEM 2009 team from Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore, India worked with National Centre for Biological Sciences to design a bacteria that produces the smell of rain.
SymbioticA
The art and science collaborative laboratory at the University of Western Australia.
Tissue Culture & Arts Project
Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr famously grew and ate the first victimless steak.
Art|Sci Center, UCLA
Collaborations between (media) arts and (bio/nano) sciences.
Design and the Elastic Mind
2008 exhibition at Museum of Modern Art, NYC, highlighted "examples of successful translation of disruptive innovation, examples based on ongoing research, as well as reflections on the future responsibilities of design."
What If...?
Exhibition of speculative design work at the Science Gallery, Dublin, 2009.
Impact
EPSRC project linking 15 research groups with designers from Design Interactions, Royal College of Art. Exhibition: March 2010, RCA London.
Biojewellery
A design and science collaborative project, designing rings with bioengineered bone tissue.
CiSynBio
Research project into film and synbio, including BioFiction, a science, art and film festival in 2011, from the SynBioSafe research project team.
Arts Catalyst
UK-based, the Arts Catalyst commissions contemporary art that experimentally and critically engages with science.
NOBELlini: Blind Data
30 young scientists paired with 30 design students to create design products that communicate science. A follow-on from NOBEL textiles, where 5 Nobel Prize-winning scientists worked with textile designers.
Plastic Futures
Blog from SymbioticA/RMIT Biotech and Art workshop, Melbourne, 2009.
Future jobs - So what might you be doing?
According to the UK government...
Further Reading
Biology is Technology - Rob Carlson
Design Noir - Anthony Dunne
