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A synthetic biology approach to integrative high school STEM training

Nature Biotechnology volume 35, pages 591–595 (2017)Cite this article

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Synthetic biology–based group activities provide opportunities for integrative STEM training and literacy, while lowering barriers for high school students to become interested in science careers.

The primary aim of synthetic biology is to apply engineering principles to biological systems, and in turn produce a desirable trait or behavior1,2,3. Modular and interchangeable standard biological parts (such as a DNA sequence that codes for a particular protein) created by communities of scientists are openly available (http://parts.igem.org/Catalog) and can be abstracted upon to hierarchically design devices and biological systems. This dynamic method of engineering biology has applications in economically significant and diverse fields such as biomedical engineering4,5, environmental remediation6,7, and biofuel production8,9. Perhaps the most notable success of synthetic biology is the engineering of artemisinic acid (precursor to the anti-malarial drug artemisinin) biosynthesis in yeast10. The pharmaceutical company Sanofi (Paris) is currently using this technology to produce artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) treatments under a no-profit, no-loss model11. Given the almost 200 million cases of malaria and the estimated 584,000 malaria-attributed deaths in 2013 (refs. 11,12), the potential health and humanitarian impact of synthetic biology applications is evident.

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Figure 1: High school iGEM by the numbers.
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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada

    Sutherland Dubé, Brian Dempsey & Hans-Joachim Wieden

  2. Teaching Centre, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Canada, Alberta

    Doug Orr

  3. Alberta RNA Research and Training Institute, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada

    Brian Dempsey & Hans-Joachim Wieden

Authors
  1. Sutherland Dubé
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  2. Doug Orr
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  4. Hans-Joachim Wieden
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Correspondence to Hans-Joachim Wieden.

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Dubé, S., Orr, D., Dempsey, B. et al. A synthetic biology approach to integrative high school STEM training. Nat Biotechnol 35, 591–595 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.3896

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