Synthetic Biology: Will pharma sink or swim?

Synthetic biology — a discipline derived from the convergence of biotechnology, genetic engineering, systems biology and more — is ready for its time in the sun.

Despite being a young field, beginning in earnest in the late 1990s, synthetic biology already has a significant effect on the way we live. It has given us biofuels, degradable plastics and — for better or worse — algae butter. With the advent of the Crispr-Cas9 system in 2012, it has become cheaper and easier than ever to manipulate DNA and construct artificial biological systems.

Gene therapy