Synthetic biology

Background

Over the last thirty decades, gene technology has significantly contributed to our understanding of biological processes and the development of new biotechnical applications. The ‘omics’-based methods (e.g. genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics) have shed new light on the functions of genes, the structure of genomes and the expression of gene products.

Synthetic biology is a new, internationally vigorously developing multidisciplinary research field, which integrates, for example, biosciences and physical-chemical and technical sciences with a view to tailoring and building new biological components (e.g. biocatalysts or genetic circuits) and assembling them in a controlled way into biological devices and production systems (cells).

This field thus represents a multidisciplinary approach combining several closely related disciplines, ranging from broad-based biology and biomedical research to modelling, computer-aided planning, process technology, chemical synthetics and material physics.

Synthetic biology and its applications also involve a number of societal and ethical questions that should be investigated at an early stage. Synthetic biology provides an excellent example of how both the problem setting and the objectives have changed with the progress of technology.

Objectives

The objective of the Academy of Finland’s research programme on synthetic biology is to integrate Finnish-based researchers into an internationally competitive scientific community that would exceed a critical mass and that would actively work to develop synthetic biology and apply the research knowledge from the community.

International cooperation and further promotion of emerging international networks through active researcher mobility, for instance, will be an integral part of the programme from the very outset.

Themes

The research programme could include the following broadly interpretable themes:

• Modelling of biological structures and metabolic routes
• Building of biological modules into production systems
• Process technology and health science applications
• Biosecurity and ethics.

Cooperation

The programme will cover research-related elements from all Finnish universities and institutions of higher education conducting research in the fields of engineering, natural sciences and health sciences. In addition, synthetic biology has strong links with the research community of ethics and philosophy of science. The research programme will bring the large multidisciplinary international research community together with society at large to develop and discuss future production methods and approaches to biological knowledge as a tool. There are also plans to launch an ERA-NET call in synthetic biology within the programme’s thematic area. If implemented, this call would facilitate the establishment of an EU-level cooperation forum that is vital to the progress of the whole field. Cooperation with non-EU countries should be established through researcher mobility, at least with US research communities that have a strong knowledge base in synthetic biology.

Scope

According to preliminary plans, the proposed research programme will have one main call for funding and 1–2 additional calls associated with international cooperation. The programme will also participate in calls in connection with an ERA-NET that will possibly be established in synthetic biology.