Ten years ago, researchers created the first devices (here and here) widely viewed as launching the field of synthetic biology. In the decade since, advances in genomics and the chemical synthesis of DNA, among other fields, have created new tools for investigating and understanding the behavior of biological systems. Some researchers now believe that the time is right to harness these tools in new efforts against cancer and other diseases.

To explore how these tools might be used, NCI and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences convened a workshop in April called “Synthetic Biology and Biomedicine: Progress, Outlook, and Challenges.” The meeting brought leaders in the field to Bethesda, MD, to discuss everything from state-of-the-art technologies and their potential applications in cancer research to ethical questions raised by new discoveries. (See the sidebar below.)

“The goal was to see where the field of synthetic biology is, in terms of cutting-edge research, and to learn from experts about what the current hurdles are, especially hurdles involved in translating basic synthetic biology research into cancer research,” said Dr. Jerry Li, a program director in NCI’s Division of Cancer Biology (DCB).

Dr. Drew Endy of the Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University and Dr. Aristides Patrinos, president of Synthetic Genomics, Inc., chaired the workshop. (The workshop agenda is available online.) While there are many definitions of synthetic biology.

One of the central ideas is the belief that to truly understand how something works, one has to build it. In this sense, synthetic biology refers to the design and creation of the components of biological systems that are not found in the natural world, as well as to the redesign and fabrication of existing biological systems.

“Synthetic biology brings together knowledge learned from a number of fields—biology, engineering, physics, chemistry—and uses this information to try to redesign and engineer biological components,” said Dr. Daniel Gallahan, deputy director of DCB. For cancer research, these approaches could both reveal new insights into the disease and potentially lead to new treatments, he added.