Brief for GSDR 2015 The promise of synthetic biology for sustainable development

Synthetic biology builds on the achievements and uses the techniques of genetic engineering, which involves the alteration of an organism’s genetic material using biotechnology. Synthetic biology has been defined as “the design and construction of new biological parts, devices, and systems, and the re-design of existing, natural biological systems for useful purposes” (Nature). It has also been described as “the construction of customized biological systems to perform new and improved functions, through the application of principles from engineering and chemical synthesis” (ter Meulen, 2014). Synthetic biology represents the convergence of technologies from the life sciences, such as DNA recombination, with other fields like engineering, computational technology and nanotechnology (OECD, 2014).