 Synthetic Biology Synthetic Biology is a new area of biological research that combines biology and engineering in order to design and build new biological functions and systems in cells. So how does it work? In synthetic biology you can think of a cell almost like a computer. In a computer there are a whole lot of individual parts like memory, CPUs and video cards which work together to provide different functionalities. In cells there are also a lot of different parts, things called membranes, mitochondria, ribosomes, enzymes that work together providing different functions to make the whole cell work. All of these different parts are coded for by a cell's DNA, the same way computer programs have a code to make them work. And in the same way we use different bits of code in different computer programs we can also use different bits of DNA to program a cell. We call these bits of DNA biobricks. These biobricks can perform a range of tasks such as construction scaffolds for complex biological structures, electrical wiring and even on-off switches inside the cell. The biobricks can then be connected like computer circuitry and the synthetic biologist then arranges these individual components to engineer a cellular production line designed to run at maximum efficiency. So what makes synthetic biology different from plain old genetic engineering? In genetic engineering a few genes might be added or deleted from a cell, but these genes already exist in nature. In synthetic biology we are making biological parts that don't already exist in nature, either by extensively modifying existing DNA code or by creating entirely new bits of code that produce new components. This is like writing a new program for the cell and getting it to work properly with existing DNA and cell parts. So what might synthetic biology be used for? An example is creating cells that produce special high-tech products that humans can harvest and use. Currently synthetic biologists are exploring ways to make low-cost drugs that will overcome global shortages for diseases such as malaria. They are also investigating ways to turn sugarcane into jet fuel and create super-strong, super-light textiles like spider silk. They are placed inside vats or flumenters and are kick-started into action, soon to begin producing large quantities of the products they have been engineered to produce. Despite the modifications to a cell's genetic material, the process is safe because the cells design not to really produce outside of these specially controlled artificial environments, making them a safe, environmentally-friendly, renewable mode of production. In the future, synthetic biology could be used to alert us to the presence of environmental toxins, produce carbon-neutral fuel sources and help us diagnose and protect us from disease. Right now, however, there is still a lot to learn because although we know how to read and write the genetic code, we still don't know how to use it to solve a particular problem. But as we learn more about synthetic biology, we will be able to design more complicated cell systems and tackle many of the problems facing our modern world today. In theory, the uses and applications of synthetic biology are only limited by our imagination.