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For scientist Jack Newman, creating a new life-form has become as simple as this: He types out a DNA sequence on his laptop. Clicks “send.” And a few yards away in the laboratory, robotic arms mix together some compounds to produce the desired cells.
Newman’s biotech company is creating new organisms, most forms of genetically modified yeast, at the dizzying rate of more than 1,500 a day. Some convert sugar into medicines. Others create moisturizers that can be used in cosmetics. And still others make biofuel, a renewable energy source usually made from corn.
“You can now build a cell the same way you might build an app for your iPhone,” said Newman, chief science officer of Amyris.
Some believe this kind of work marks the beginning of a third industrial revolution — one based on using living systems as “bio-factories” for creating substances that are either too tricky or too expensive to grow in nature or to make with petrochemicals.
The rush to biological means of production promises to revolutionize the chemical industry and transform the economy, but...
Newman’s biotech company is creating new organisms, most forms of genetically modified yeast, at the dizzying rate of more than 1,500 a day. Some convert sugar into medicines. Others create moisturizers that can be used in cosmetics. And still others make biofuel, a renewable energy source usually made from corn.
“You can now build a cell the same way you might build an app for your iPhone,” said Newman, chief science officer of Amyris.
Some believe this kind of work marks the beginning of a third industrial revolution — one based on using living systems as “bio-factories” for creating substances that are either too tricky or too expensive to grow in nature or to make with petrochemicals.
The rush to biological means of production promises to revolutionize the chemical industry and transform the economy, but...