Synthetic biology genomics

Part A From Pioneers to Visionary covers the period from the early days of industrial biotechnology (Chapter 1) till the time of development of novel concepts of strain design and production, including synthetic biology, genome-scale modeling, and cell-free production (Chapters 2-4) and bridges 100 years of discovery and innovation. 

Forster AC, Church GM (2007) Synthetic biology projects in vitro. Genome Res 17 1-6... 

Genomics has many applications. Among the most important applications, because of their impact on society, are those that deal with evolution and the environment. Other areas, such as synthetic biology and personal genomics, may lead to innovations that... 

Genomic Ventures. Many genomics companies formed in the 1990 s and 2000 s, but many are still in the research and development process and have yet to market products. Most of these companies apply genomics to the creation of pharmaceuticals, although some use genomic studies for environmental purposes or in synthetic biology. Many are involved in cooperative ventures with pharmaceutical companies, and mergers and acquisitions are common. 

The scientific and commercial value of synthetic organic chemistry research seems to have been underestimated in the recent decades dominated by molecular biology, genomics, products from exotic natural sources, and so on. However, it was recently stated that synthetic methods still attract most of the attention of the reader-ship of many leading American Chemical Society (ACS) chemical journals [7]. Thus, five of the top ten most requested articles in the CAS Science Spotlight are from J Am Chem Soc and all refer to synthetic methods. The first four papers refer to reactions that are suitable for work on a large scale. The author concluded that nowadays, the fine chemicals industry and pharmaceutical industry generally rely on university research to discover new reactions, which are then adapted to industrial processes. The chapters in this book report many such examples. 

The author would like to thank the Synthetic Biology Group at JCVI for the helpful discussions and Synthetic Genomics, Inc. for funding this work. 

Key words Cloning, Bacteria, Genome, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Yeast, Yeast centromeric plasmid, YAC, Synthetic biology... 

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