Team:UCopenhagen/Collaborations
Introduction
Collaboration is a powerful driver of progress in science. To stand on the shoulders of giants is increasingly unrealistic in a globalised world where scientists work in ever more specialised areas and without geographic or language barriers.
For science to continue to benefit from globalisation, we must advance the axiom and seek to build a human pyramid from the shoulders before and around us. Collaboration and open source data are at the heart of iGEM and so too the heart of Incell.
Below we describe our most significant collaborations within the iGEM community. The symbiosis we strive for in our project has shone brightly through the partnerships established with teams around the world. Our story — and the stories of our friends — have been mutually shaped by the diversity of our shared experiences, knowledge and perspectives.
Applications and Implications
<By understanding the basic principles behind the creation of stable endosymbiotic events we hope that in the future it will be possible to use artificial endosymbiosis as a new technology in synthetic biology, and we believe that value can be created in the foundational track of the iGEM competition. History has shown that great scientific advances has followed the implementation of new revolutionary technologies (Gershon 2003).
We envision that artificial endosymbiosis could be applied in a broad range of fields, including agriculture, medicine and production of valuable compounds. A deeper understanding of the relationships intertwining endosymbionts and their hosts could unravel new knowledge applicable for the treatment of mitochondrial diseases, while a living compartment able to fixate nitrogen from the air could decrease the fertilizer use in agricultural production.
However, the applications are only limited by the imagination of future users. Indeed, the game-changing role of endosymbiosis has not gone unseen to the eyes of the modern bioengineers, who predict that the establishment of a novel interaction has the potential to radically alter the host cell physiology without directly affecting the host genome (Scientific America Vol 105 pp. 36-45).
Before the potential application of artificial endosymbiosis, there are many things to consider. While the current regulations regarding GMO limits what is possible to apply in agriculture and medicine, regulations regarding synthetically modified organisms (SMOs) have not yet been systematically put into place. How will a new field of SMO be regulated, and how will it influence possible applications of artificial endosymbiosis?
In addition to our scientific investigation we are enthused to trigger debate about synthetic biology. We intend to podcast intriguing conversations with experts, thereby hoping to reach the general public and impel the discussion about the ethics and future prospects in combining biology and engineering.
