The synthetic biology revolution isn’t just about what scientists can do, but how they can do it. The growing use of automation at a biotech company like Ginkgo is an example of a trend called “deskilling.” With each passing year, the scientific expertise needed to pull off a specific experiment in synthetic biology falls. What might have recently required the hard work of a postdoctoral student can now be done by undergraduates, and might soon show up in an ambitious high school student’s science fair project. Synthetic biology is getting easier, faster and cheaper, which means more and more people can do it. And as it does, the information hazard—the risk that comes from the dissemination of potentially dangerous knowledge—accumulates.
Deskilling has helped Ginkgo design and produce more than 10,000 genes per month, as synthetic biology shifts from an artisanal practice carried out in the laboratory by highly trained experts to a real industry. Everything is sped up, allowing researchers to design an organism, build it, test it, analyze the test and then start the whole cycle over and over again. “Things that would have made a great PhD thesis a few years back can now be done by people in two weeks here,” Ms. Agapakis said.
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