Interview
a16z Podcast | All About Synthetic Biology
- Synthetic biology is projected to be the defining field of the current century, expected to transition from a phase of "peak hype" into production and utility within the next decade to address global environmental challenges, including world hunger, global warming, and carbon capture through the use of algae and organisms.
- Specific applications anticipated within the next 10 years include the creation of synthetic ecosystems and microbiomes to make coral reefs heat-tolerant and prevent bleaching, as well as the use of synthetic circuits to programmatically alter plant traits for robustness against pathogens.
- The field's technological trajectory involves a "marriage of directed evolution with synthetic biology" coupled with machine learning, where quantitative approaches and data analytics are expected to become dominant for protein design, enabling access to genotype-phenotype spaces in timeframes ranging from hundreds to billions of years shorter than natural evolution.
- Strategic challenges for companies involve a pivot from single-asset focus to platform development to avoid financial struggle and failure driven by negative opportunity costs, with in-house manufacturing capabilities cited as a significant value driver for companies advancing assets past Phase one or two.
- Investor sentiment is shifting back toward platform companies, similar to pre-2001 trends, contrasting with the post-crash era where focus was fixated on products, though the jury remains out on whether engineering living cells for production is superior to traditional chemical synthesis for all cases.
- A critical requirement for the next 10 years is the influx of talent and the introduction of design thinking to youth to foster comfort with engineering biology, addressing the interdisciplinary nature of the field where the interface of quantitative approaches and biology becomes central.