UC Berkeley June 19, 2019
According to a road map released by the Engineering Biology Research Consortium partially funded by the National Science Foundation and centered at the UC Berkeley, the 20-year-old field of synthetic biology is now mature enough to provide solutions to a range of societal problems. The consortium is made up of 80 scientists and engineers from a range of disciplines, representing more than 30 universities and a dozen companies. The roadmap identifies five research areas that the federal government needs to invest in to fuel the bioeconomy and keep the U.S. at the forefront of the field. China and the United Kingdom have made engineering biology/synthetic biology a cornerstone of their national research enterprise…read more.
Synthetic or engineering biology involves genetically engineering not only yeast and bacteria but also plants, animals and humans.