Overview

Synthetic Biology has rapidly developed from a scientific discipline into a large industry. Many new companies are designing microbes that produce valuable chemicals, such as pharmaceutical drugs and fragrances, in very large fermentation reactors.

Today, we are on the verge of using synthetic microbes within consumer products. How should we incorporate synthetic organisms into our products, clothing, and homes?

Farma brews Arthrospira platensis, also known as Spirulina, that has been modified to produce pharmaceutical drugs. The reactor brews, measures, filters, and dries the Spirulina into a powder. The consumer then fills gel capsules using the accompanying pill maker and consumes the drugs.

Background:

Academics and corporations have recently demonstrated complicated, multi-step metabolic pathways into micro-organisms to produce pharmaceutical drugs. For example, Dr. Christina Smolke's laboratory at Stanford recently engineered yeast to synthesize opiates from glucose. Although the researchers demonstrated small concentrations of opiate production, they recently launched a startup company to improve the process and eventually produce and sell opiates commercially. Another example is Artemisinin, an anti-malarial drug traditionally derived from wormwood trees. In the late 2000s, Amyris engineered yeast to produce Artemisinin and now the world's supply of Artemisinin is predominately produced by yeast. In addition to pharmaceutical drugs, other synthetic biology companies are producing valuable fragrances (ex: essence of rose), cosmetics (ex: palm oil), tastes (ex: vanilla & saffron) , and materials (spider silk).

Much of these advances have been made possible by new genome editing techniques, particular CRISPR, and automated, robotic laboratories. The design, build, test cycle for biology is now cheaper and faster than ever, making trying and improving on new ideas lower cost. As a result, synthetic biology has attracted tremendous interest from the Venture Capital industry, netting over $500 million in investment in 2015 alone.

Most of these existing pursuits can be lumped into the same theme: using microbes to produce expensive substances more cheaply than the current method. Now scientists, entrepreneurs, and students are beginning to explore provocative ideas that could bring synthetic microbes into our daily lives - for example, engineered probiotics and fermented foods, hen-free eggs and cow-free milk, and plants that grow as lights. At the same time, a thriving DIY synthetic biology community is now engineering micro-organisms in kitchens using low-cost, wet-lab tools that are often 3D printing and run using open-source electronics and software. The bottom line of all this is that synthetic biology is coming into our lives, whether we like it or not.

How should the development, accessibility, and commercialization of synthetic biology expand into our daily lives? What should our relationship be with engineered life? I think there's a role for designers and artists to create speculative synthetic biology projects to help both synthetic biologists and the public to discuss what organisms should be designed.

Who am I and how do I fit into all this?

I'm a mechanical engineer and product designer who has recently become fascinated by synthetic biology (and all of bioengineering more generally) while in graduate school. I ended up taking most of my coursework on these topics and researched 3D printed microfluidics and microbial symbiosis. (You can check out some of the projects and publications on my personal website). During my residency at Autodesk's Pier 9, I wanted to explore a near-future synthetic biology scenario that seems particularly plausible: the distributed production of pharmaceutical drugs.

I spoke to friends about the idea before pursuing it got a lot of mixed responses along the lines of:

This is awesome! I totally want to grow algae at home (i.e. the San Francisco Kombucha crowd).

This is awesome! I want to be able to engineer my own nutrition and drugs (i.e. the Soylent people).

Shouldn't individuals / consumers be able to make their own drugs and not rely on big Pharma / bloated healthcare system (i.e. the populist liberal / Silicon Valley libertarian)?

I don't really care I'll just buy drugs from companies / dealers.

Isn't this like Breaking Bad and everyone will become dependent on drugs (pragmatic realist #1)?

This is never going to happen with the FDA / government regulation (cynical realist #1).

I think that decentralized production of drugs and other chemicals is inevitable given the coming accessibility and democratization of synthetic biology. Overall, I think this is a good thing, leading to greater access to drugs, chemicals and materials. I would hope this would develop in a free and open manner, where communities of synthetic biologists design, develop and share organisms for the greater good of all (similar to open-source software). However, I doubt this will happen. Instead, I think it's likely that companies will patent, own, and sell the rights to produce organisms, create and sell synthetic biology projects, and sue individuals who attempt to do it themselves.

Concept:

I wanted to create a project that demonstrates the near-future scenario for distributed drug production that I think is most likely: the corporate design, production and sale of microbes for distributed brewing at home. I wanted to make the project as realistic and plausible as possible, making the audience feel that this type of produce could very well be a real thing. Therefore, I attempted to design a piece that seemed familiar and believable and functioned as closely as possible to the hypothetical device.

Why Spirulina?

I decided to use Spirulina as my drug production organism for a few reasons. First, it's a well known as a green "super food" that people eat as a supplement. Secondly, harvesting Spirulina is simple - the bacteria can be strained from its culture medium using a filter and consumed directly (or alternatively dried and then eaten). Many people grow and harvest their own Spirulina at home. If Spirulina is engineered to produce a drug, you could "take" the drug by eating the organism, eliminating any downstream processing. Finally, Spirulina grows in a highly alkaline environment, making sterilization much easier (most contaminating microbes can't grow in the alkaline media).

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