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mperial College London, says:
"One of the major goals in synthetic biology is to find a way to industrialise our processes so that we can mass produce these biological factories much in the same way that industries such as car manufacturers mass produce vehicles in a factory line. This could unlock the potential of this field of science and enable us to develop much more sophisticated devices that could be used to improve many facets of society. Excitingly, our research takes us one step closer to this reality, providing a rapid way of developing new parts."
When a cell is re-engineered, the re-programmed DNA in the cell encodes a message that is conveyed by molecules called messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) to the cell's production factories called ribosomes. The ribosomes translate the genetic information into a command that instructs the cell to perform functions. For example, scientists can already re-engineer a cell into an infection detector factory, which produces a protein that detects chemical signals from human pathogenic bacteria and changes colour to indicate their presence.
In the study, the Imperial researchers demonstrate for the first time that the same method can be achieved in a test tube outside of a cell. This involves extracting from cells the machinery that produces mRNA and proteins and providing the energy and building blocks to help them survive in test tubes. The team then add their re-programmed DNA to the solution and observe how it functions.
The advantage of this method is that scientists can develop litres of this cell-like environment so that multiple re-programmed DNA can be tested simultaneously, which speeds up the production process of parts.
The next stage of the research is to expand the types of parts and devices that can be developed using this method. They also are aiming to develop a method using robots to speed up and make the whole process automated.
Professor Richard Kitney, co- Director of the Cen
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| Contact: Colin Smith cd.smith@imperial.ac.uk 44-020-759-46712 Imperial College London Source:Eurekalert |
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