[Dean's World] Dave Price: Singularity Update

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Dave Price:
Singularity Update
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1157124777.shtml


   Here's a [1]fascinating article and graph on the progress of synthetic
   biology. The author specifcally likens the advances in genetics to
   Moore's Law -- and the numbers seem to bear the analogy out.
   Some practical applications of these advances are already under
   development:

     Dr Keasling's project is to do biologically what no chemist has yet
     managed to accomplishâto synthesise an antimalarial drug called
     artemisinin cheaply. At the moment, artemisinin is a herbal remedy.
     It is extracted from Artemisia annua, a type of wormwood, and the
     best source is in China. Making artemisinin by standard chemistry
     requires so many steps that it is impractical. So Dr Keasling
     persuaded the Gates Foundation to back his idea for doing the job
     using synthetic biology.
     For this, he has built a metabolic pathway in yeast cells that
     synthesises a chemical called artemisinic acid which chemists can
     easily convert into artemisinin. Some of the genes to do this have
     come from Artemisia, but others have been created from other
     sources.

   As someone who grew up reading [2]Frank Herbert, I've always thought
   the potential for genetic engineering to be greatly underestimated.
   Natural selection has created some wondrous things, but as terrestrial
   evolution has some inherent limitations and follows the path of least
   resistance it is certain to have missed some very useful biological
   sideroads. With the growing ability to model synthetic life virtually,
   the potential for rapidly developing radically new and useful new
   applications is likely to be extraordinary. And there's vast room for
   improvement even among existing bio-applications: we only make use of
   something like .01% of the planet's biomass, and what we do use is
   very inefficient compared to theoretically optimal solutions.
   (via [3]GeekPress)

References

   1. http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7854314
   2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Herbert
   3. http://www.geekpress.com/