To sum up, the conceptual possibilities presented to copyright and patent law by the idea of a Turing machine were fascinating. Should we extend copyright or patent to cover the new technology? The answer was "we will extend both!" Yet the results of the extension were complex and unexpected in ways that we will have to understand if we want to go beyond the simple but important injunctions of Jefferson and Macaulay. Who would have predicted that software copyrights could be used to create a self-perpetuating commons as well as a monopoly over operating systems, or that judges would talk knowingly of network effects in curtailing the scope of coverage? Who would have predicted that patents would be extended not only to basic algorithms implemented by a computer, but to methods of business themselves (truly a strange return to legalized business monopolies for a country whose founders viewed them as one of the greatest evils that could be borne)? 36
SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY 37
If you are a reader of Science, PLoS Biology, or Nature, you will have noticed some attractive and bizarre photographs recently. A field of bacteria that form themselves into bull's- eyes and polka dots. A dim photograph of a woman's face "taken" by bacteria that have been programmed to be sensitive to light. You may also have read about more inspiring, if less photogenic, accomplishments—for example, the group of scientists who managed to program bacteria to produce artemesinin, a scarce natural remedy for malaria derived from wormwood. Poking deeper into these stories, you would have found the phrase "synthetic biology" repeated again and again, though a precise definition would have eluded you. 38
What is "synthetic biology"? For some it is simply that the product or process involves biological materials not found in nature. Good old-fashioned biotechnology would qualify. One of the first biotechnology patent cases, Diamond v. Chakrabarty, involved some bacteria which Dr. Chakrabarty had engineered to eat oil slicks—not their natural foodstuff.8 The Supreme Court noted that the bacteria were not found in nature and found them to be patentable, though alive. According to the simplest definition, Dr. Chakrabarty's process would count as synthetic biology, though this example antedates the common use of the term by two decades. For other scientists, it is the completely synthetic quality of the biology involved that marks the edge of the discipline. The DNA we are familiar with, for example, has four "base pairs"— A, C, G, and T. Scientists have developed genetic alphabets that involve twelve base pairs. Not only is the result not found in nature, but the very language in which it is expressed is entirely new and artificial. 39
I want to focus on a third conception of synthetic biology: the idea of turning biotechnology from an artisanal process of one- off creations, developed with customized techniques, to a true engineering discipline, using processes and parts that are as standardized and as well understood as valves, screws, capacitors, or resistors. The electrical engineer told to build a circuit does not go out and invent her own switches or capacitors. She can build a circuit using off-the-shelf components whose performance is expressed using standard measurements. This is the dream of one group of synthetic biologists: that biological engineering truly become engineering, with biological black boxes that perform all of the standard functions of electrical or mechanical engineering—measuring flow, reacting to a high signal by giving out a low signal, or vice versa, starting or terminating a sequence, connecting the energy of one process to another, and so on. 40
Of course an engineer understands the principle behind a ratchet, or a valve, but he does not have to go through the process of thinking "as part of this design, I will have to create a thing that lets stuff flow through one way and not the other." The valve is the mechanical unit that stands for that thought, a concept reified in standardized material form which does not need to be taken apart and parsed each time it is used. By contrast, the synthetic biologists claim, much of current biotechnological experimentation operates the way a seventeenth- century artisan did. Think of the gunsmith making beautiful one- off classics for his aristocratic patrons, without standardized calibers, parts, or even standard-gauge springs or screws. The process produces the gun, but it does not use, or produce, standard parts that can also be used by the next gunsmith. 41
Is this portrayal of biology correct? Does it involve some hyping of the new hot field, some denigration of the older techniques? I would be shocked, shocked, to find there was hype involved in the scientific or academic enterprise. But whatever the degree to which the novelty of this process is being subtly inflated, it is hard to avoid being impressed by the projects that this group of synthetic biologists has undertaken. The MIT Registry of Standard Biological Parts, for example, has exactly the goal I have just described. 42
The development of well-specified, standard, and interchangeable biological parts is a critical step towards the design and construction of integrated biological systems. The MIT Registry of Standard Biological Parts supports this goal by recording and indexing biological parts that are currently being built and offering synthesis and assembly services to construct new parts, devices, and systems. . . . In the summer of 2004, the Registry contained about 100 basic parts such as operators, protein coding regions, and transcriptional terminators, and devices such as logic gates built from these basic parts. Today the number of parts has increased to about 700 available parts and 2000 defined parts. The Registry believes in the idea that a standard biological part should be well specified and able to be paired with other parts into subassemblies and whole systems. Once the parameters of these parts are determined and standardized, simulation and design of genetic systems will become easier and more reliable. The parts in the Registry are not simply segments of DNA, they are functional units.9 43
Using the Registry, a group of MIT scientists organizes an annual contest called iGEM, the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition. Students can draw from the standard parts that the Registry contains, and perhaps contribute their own creations back to it. What kinds of "genetically engineered machines" do they build? 44
A team of eight undergraduates from the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia— cheering and leaping onto MIT's Kresge Auditorium stage in green team T-shirts— won the grand prize earlier this month at the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition at MIT. The group—which received an engraved award in the shape of a large aluminum Lego piece—explored a way to use engineered cells to intercept the body's excessive response to infection, which can lead to a fatal condition called sepsis. The goal of the 380 students on 35 university teams from around the world was to build biological systems the way a contractor would build a house—with a toolkit of standard parts. iGEM participants spent the summer immersed in the growing field of synthetic biology, creating simple systems from interchangeable parts that operate in living cells. Biology, once thought too complicated to be engineered like a clock, computer or microwave oven, has proven to be open to manipulation at the genetic level. The new creations are engineered from snippets of DNA, the molecules that run living cells.10 45