DNA Editing Technology Advances Rapidly
One of the fastest growing areas of biotechnology is the ability to synthesize DNA and edit genes. What was once something found only naturally can now be designed and built from raw chemical components. This new field known as DNA printing allows scientists to engineer life at the molecular level and pursue research that was not possible even just a decade ago.
The rise of commercial Gene Synthesis printing companies in recent years has driven down costs and made synthesizing short strands of custom-designed DNA widely accessible. Whereas synthesizing an entire gene used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, today the same can be done for just a few hundred due to automation and economies of scale. This has opened up new frontiers in synthetic biology applications across diverse fields ranging from medicine to materials science.
DNA Assembly Makes Long Strands Possible
While short oligonucleotides of around 100 base pairs can be directly synthesized, producing genes that may be thousands of bases long requires an assembly process. The most common technique is called Gibson assembly, developed in 2009. It involves partially overlapping short strands that base pair together, with any gaps in between filled in enzymatically.
Do-it-yourself biohackers and makerspaces have utilized gene assembly methods to synthesizes genes from scratch as a proof of concept. However, the real potential lies in industrial and academic labs using DNA printing at large scale. Pharmaceutical companies are engineering bacteria to produce medicinal compounds, biotech startups are developing new enzymes and materials, and genomic scientists are synthesizing whole viral genomes to better understand disease.
Precision Medicine Drives Therapeutic Gene Design
One burgeoning area is therapeutic gene design for personalized medicine applications. Knowing the DNA sequence of an individual, their unique genetic defects or predispositions to certain diseases can be addressed at the root level through DNA editing. CRISPR-Cas9 gene drives this vision forward by allowing rewriting of the genetic code anywhere in the genome with unprecedented precision and efficiency.
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