The potential benefits of SynBio for health care

SynBio may radically alter how health care is researched, managed and delivered. For example, synthetic synthesis of anti-malarial drugs may soon be possible. US researchers have built a new metabolic pathway in yeast and E. coli using genes from three separate organisms to create a bacterial strain that can produce amorphadiene, a pre-cursor to artemisinin (an effective anti-malarial drug).This drug is usually obtained from an increasingly rare naturally-occurring source, which makes it expensive to produce and potentially harmful to the environment. The altered E. coli that the researchers created is able to produce million-fold higher levels of amorphadiene than that available with naturally occurring sources. Ironically, however, this scientific development could have a detrimental impact on the communities in developing countries who currently produce the rare precursor to amorphadiene as a synthetic substitute could cause a loss of value of the product that supports their livelihood. Further applications of SynBio for health are in development and significant findings are likely to be published during SYBHEL.

Some of the benefits that SynBio may offer for human health:

SynBio could lead to new devices for tissue repair or regeneration inside the body. These could be built with biological components to specifically target diseased tissues, for example to deliver chemotherapy directly to tumour sites, repair damaged or blocked blood vessels or rebuild collagen networks. A person’s existing cells could also be modified to gain new functions before being re-introduced. This could also improvements in our body’s immune system, or advances in removing bodily toxins.

SynBio could be exploited to design drugs to be taken in the usual way, but which remain inactive until reaching a target site. The compound would then perform a diagnostic activity to determine whether to activate and release the drug. Likewise, SynBio could help design truly personalised drugs specific to individual needs.

SynBio could be used to develop devices to live in our bodies and monitor the internal environment, such as hormone levels. If an imbalance is detected the device would secrete the relevant compound in response. This could help patients with chronic conditions and will negate continual clinical monitoring and drug delivery.

Advances in DNA synthesis mean that lengthier and more complex DNA structures can now be generated artificially. This could lead to the design or modification of tailored non-pathogenic ‘viruses’ to contain synthetic genes for use in gene therapy. These could be targeted to specific cells or areas in the genome for site-specific recombination; overcoming major barriers to gene therapy. Likewise, the new ‘toolbox’ of DNA synthesis and components could lead to a virtually limitless palette of scientific inspiration from nature, tailored to new products to boost human health. This could end supply problems with natural drug pre-cursors for malaria, cancer and HIV.

Adaptations of DNA, RNA, nucleic acids and proteins are currently limited to working with naturally occurring components. SynBio could overcome the limits of natural chemistry to create new or modified molecular components for the design of new proteins. This could  optimise uptake of new drugs across cellular membranes.

(Image Daisy Ginsberg)