UCL's Synthetic Biology Society (SynBioSoc), founded by Phillip Boeing, is a synthetic biology student community based at UCL. Its Kick-off event featured talks by C-LAB's Howard Boland, Dr Chris Barnes, Sean Ward, Tom Folliard, Dr Darren Nesbeth and the award-winning presentation by UCL 2012 iGEM team.
Art from Synthetic Biology, by Howard Boland, C-LAB
In Howard's research, he asks how artists can appropriate synthetic biology towards art production and discussed the challenges involved in exhibiting such living matter.
Introducing Synthace – a synthetic biology startup, by Sean Ward
With the introduction of iGEM Entrepreneurship, Sean Ward, a successful entrepreneur of a synthetic biology start-up, provided useful insights into the sort of products and business model a business-minded scientist might appropriate. Currently, his company Synthace is producing high-value protein products and specialist chemicals through an active university collaboration.
Systems and Synthetic Biology – the foundation of the future biology? by Chris Barnes
Chris Barnes suggested that systems biology (i.e. understanding biological systems using computational models in order to predict these) and synthetic biology together form the foundation of future biology. To Barnes, systems biology is thus reverse engineering while synthetic biology is forward engineering - or two different approaches to the same kind united by engineering principles and mathematical modelling.
What is Synthetic Biology? by Thomas Folliard
Starting with the Drew Endy's quote "Synthetic Biology isn't about what you making, it's about how you are making it", Thomas Follard explicated on fundamental principles of synthetic biology and speculated on the possibilities of bio-computers that are biologically-based computational systems able to go places where silicon cannot.
