Synthetic Biology — An Inquiry

Abstract: Synthetic biology, a branch of the life sciences, can be summarized as the deliberate attempt to design living organisms. It is an emerging technoscience and a potential platform technology portrayed as possibly the next industrial revolution. This thesis is an inquiry into synthetic biology; an exploration based on observations in text. An explorative tool is the question: What is synthetic biology? I explore accomplishments, applications and approaches within synthetic biology such as BioBricks and the standardization of biological parts; the ‘birth’ of Synthia (Mycoplasma laboratorium); de-extinction; synthetic biology as a potential assistant in nature conservation; and the quest to replace agricultural production and fossil sources for oils and chemicals through the engineering of microbes. I conclude that synthetic biology is guided by an engineering vision and a reductionist paradigm in that: biology is seen as a science that can be made predictable; biological organisms are approached with an anti-complexity view; parts of an organism are seen as sufficient for properties of the whole; and species are seen as detached from their ecological context. I also conclude that synthetic biology is challenging culturally fixed boundaries and understandings and that it explains life as software, or as information process and code. I also conclude that it is a mystification of production, a fetish that conceals rather than reveals and a project of ecological modernization. Finally, I conclude that synthetic biology is producing an idea that any living being potentially can be any other which I suggest needs more inquiring.