Can We Program Our Cells?
The Joy of Why
Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine
4.9 • 577 Ratings
🗓️ 8 March 2023
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
By genetically instructing cells to perform tasks that they wouldn't in nature, synthetic biologists can learn deep secrets about how life works. Steven Strogatz discusses the potential of this young field with researcher Michael Elowitz.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Steve Strogatz, and this is The Joy of Why, a podcast from Quantum Magazine that takes you into some of the biggest unanswered questions in science and math today. |
| 0:14.2 | In this episode, we're going to be talking about synthetic biology. What is synthetic biology, and what are scientists trying to do with it? |
| 0:23.1 | Simply put, we could say that synthetic biology is a fusion of biology, especially molecular biology, and engineering. |
| 0:33.5 | The distinctive thing about it is that it treats cells as programmable devices. |
| 0:39.1 | It's a kind of tinker toy approach that builds circuits, but not out of wires and switches |
| 0:44.8 | like we're used to, but rather out of biological components, like proteins and genes. |
| 0:51.2 | Programming cells in this way isn't really all that different from programming computers, |
| 0:57.4 | except that the programming language isn't Python or C++, it's the language of biology, |
| 1:03.2 | the language of DNA. |
| 1:05.4 | With the goal of making proteins that will interact with each other in some clever ways. The potential medical applications of synthetic biology are huge. |
| 1:15.0 | But also, the approach holds promise for illuminating how life works at the deepest level. |
| 1:20.3 | It's one thing to strip cells apart to see how they work. |
| 1:23.5 | That's the classic approach to molecular biology. |
| 1:27.2 | But it's another thing to tinker with cells to try to get them to perform new tricks, |
| 1:32.2 | which is something that my guest, Michael Ellowitz, does. |
| 1:35.7 | For example, a while back, he engineered cells to blink on and off like Christmas lights. |
| 1:41.1 | And that's just the beginning. |
| 1:42.7 | Michael Ellowitz is a professor of biology and |
| 1:45.2 | biological engineering at Caltech and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Welcome, Michael. |
| 1:51.5 | Thanks, Steve. It's great to be here. So let's talk about the foundational idea of synthetic |
| 1:57.2 | biology. I mentioned it in the intro that living cells we could think of as programmable devices. The field synthetic biology. I mentioned it in the intro that living cells we could think of as programmable |
| 2:02.2 | devices. The field synthetic biology, it seems like you guys have this philosophy of that you can |
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