Emerging Technologies and Applications in Synthetic Biology

Synthetic biology uses basic biological building blocks to create fundamentally new biological molecules, cells and organisms not found in nature. This fast-growing and multidisciplinary field has the potential to advance fundamental biological understanding by providing new approaches and tools to probe living systems, to address global challenges, and to revolutionize industries by creating designer biological technologies. Equally, other emerging fields and technologies such as artificial intelligence, living/non-living hybrid systems, and nanotechnology can impact synthetic biology by providing new tools to accelerate the development of biological systems.

The past few years have witnessed new transformative technologies to read and write DNA, RNA, and proteins, accelerating progress in synthetic biology towards addressing more complex problems and engineering new host species. As a result, synthetic biology is poised to offer radical solutions to confront some of our most significant global challenges including applications in food, climate change and bioremediation, infectious and chronic diseases and even space. However, further developments are still needed to realize its full potential including developing a deeper understanding of how some of the other emerging technologies can be synergized with synthetic biology for even greater impact.

This Gordon Research Conference on Synthetic Biology and accompanying Gordon Research Seminar will provide a multidisciplinary forum to discuss progress and challenges in synthetic biology as well as new technologies that can be brought in to help address global challenges. In the spirit of Gordon Research Conferences, we will deliver an informal setting where scientists at all stages – graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, established researchers, and industry scientists - will engage as a community, foster new collaborations, and discuss key issues and questions - What are the current bottlenecks in the application of synthetic biology? How can other disciplines contribute to overcoming these bottlenecks?