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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  General Discussion  |  Topic: Craig Venter talks at TED 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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K9
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on: March 13, 2008, 01:14:24 PM

Craig Venter talks about synthetic biology

For those of you unaware of TED, it's a conference held in California where some of the most brilliant people from every realm of life (particulalry academia though) come to talk about ideas and experiences or otherwise demosntrate extraordinary talents or skills for entertainment. They started putting all their talks online a while back at Ted.com and I reccomend chencking them out, most are short (12-18mins) but are typically fascinating. I wholeheartedly reccomend the place.

In particular one of the newest talks is by Craig Venter, about syntetic/artifical biology. As someone who is doing reserch intimately linked to this I should be excused a bias for finding this particular talk interesting; I do believe it is genuinely worth watching though. Craig Venter is a man who is both brilliant and arrogant and is driving ahead with research that is potentially going to be so remarkable when it breaks as to redefine much of how the world solves its problems. I also see his research as a true example of necessity driving innovation. Personally I'm incredibly excited to be in a position to be involved in moving the field of synthetic biology onwards, and Craig Venter is a guy who has been at the centre of all this and puts over the advances quite well.

My only gripe is that Craig Venters desire to achieve these researches only seems matched by his (understandable) desire to control them.

Anyhow, I hope you like the lecture.

I love the smell of facepalm in the morning
Nebu
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Reply #1 on: March 13, 2008, 01:30:15 PM

As a chemist/biochemist, I find this type of approach to be arrogant at best and bordering on irresponsible at worst.  Organismal biologists need to fall back on first principles before going forward.  We're still understanding the machinery required for VERY SIMPLE PROCESSES.  Thinking that we can engineer organisms in such a fundamental manner is a pretty arrogant assumption. 

He's a very compelling speaker.  Sadly, I think he's in la la land.  We have so much fundamental work that needs to be addressed.  This work detracts funding from that foundational research. 

"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."

-  Mark Twain
Lantyssa
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Reply #2 on: March 13, 2008, 03:56:25 PM

I'll have to agree.  It's an interesting concept, but more fundamental research needs to be done.  That doesn't get the big money grants though.

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
K9
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Reply #3 on: March 13, 2008, 05:58:10 PM

As a chemist/biochemist, I find this type of approach to be arrogant at best and bordering on irresponsible at worst.  Organismal biologists need to fall back on first principles before going forward.  We're still understanding the machinery required for VERY SIMPLE PROCESSES.  Thinking that we can engineer organisms in such a fundamental manner is a pretty arrogant assumption. 

He's a very compelling speaker.  Sadly, I think he's in la la land.  We have so much fundamental work that needs to be addressed.  This work detracts funding from that foundational research. 

From the point of view of a biologist, while an understanding of fundamental stuff such as the mechanics of protein-protein docking and other interactions is fascinating(I assume this is the sort of thing you are referring too), it's hardly essential for synthetic biology. Since Venter and everyone else is taking a top-down approach, we just strip away what's not needed from existing organism then plagarise. I'd agree with you that he's being pretty overoptimistic seeing this as a platform for the development of new pharmaceuticals, but in other areas I think he's right on the money, and I expect to see a lot of this stuff viable in the next decade. This is stuff like bioreactors and industrial microbes where we're just building up organisms with genes/pathways that have known functions. For these a specific understanding of the mechanics of the processes is less important than finding or knowning a biological molecule or pathway that performs the function. Organisms like the Methanococcus are pretty cool in that regard. Consider also that the search for these processes in uncategorised organisms often has fringe benefits: e.g. Taq polymerase for PCR.

I agree that he's arrogant, but I don't think he's acting irresponsibly. I see a lot of potential in artificial organisms to solve a lot of problems: pollution, recycling and energy come to mind. There really aren't that many limits either on our ability to do this either. In the long run it would obviously be more interesting and viable to have a united overview of biology and be able to build organisms from the bottom up, but just because we cannot do that now doesn't mean that we shouldn't push investigations into top-down synthetic biology, in my view.
« Last Edit: November 26, 2016, 02:06:17 AM by K9 »

I love the smell of facepalm in the morning
Murgos
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Reply #4 on: March 14, 2008, 04:33:52 AM

Professor fight!  First one to call the other an egg-head loses.


GO!!!

"You have all recieved youre last warning. I am in the process of currently tracking all of youre ips and pinging your home adressess. you should not have commencemed a war with me" - Aaron Rayburn
Sky
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Reply #5 on: March 14, 2008, 06:20:27 AM

Honestly, this is very much like the first time I was in college as a biochem major. I was a biochem prodigy, pretty darn good. And my goal was inspired by the Whisperer in the Darkness. Human deep-space exploration using cyborg tech with human brains. Given my strength in biochem classes and love of astronomy, I thought it was a great research avenue.

I'm not kidding.
NiX
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Reply #6 on: March 14, 2008, 11:17:45 PM

You cease to amaze me, Sky. Either you're wrecked out of your mind constantly or just fucking brilliant.
Lantyssa
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Reply #7 on: March 15, 2008, 08:25:33 AM

Those two aren't necessarily exclusive.

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
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