Taking Biofuels From the Lab to the Classroom
This is great, a program to allow high school students to do hands-on research in synthetic biology and bioenergy organized through the Joint BioEnergy Institute. I think that synthetic biology has a lot of potential for improving how we teach and learn about biology, as evidenced by the tremendous success of the iGEM program. Even simple techniques in synthetic biology are based on a huge amount of knowledge about how cells cut, copy, and express genes, and about how different enzymes work to do some of the amazing things that bacteria can do (like break down cellulose and produce fuels). The basics of biochemistry and molecular biology are transformed from boring textbook memorization to something literally alive. There’s a big push in the synthetic biology community to abstract these details away, but I think it’s important to remember that synthetic biology is nothing without biology.
