An ASU professor is doing research in a science that could create the next plague.
The professor is William Ditto, director of ASU’s School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, and the science is synthetic biology.
Synthetic biology is the process of modifying existing organisms or creating new ones by altering genetic structures.
Scientists use synthetic biology to design biological systems for specific purposes, such as curing or treating a disease, Ditto said.
“We want to go in and hijack the programming of an organism,” he said.
At ASU, Ditto works primarily to modify yeast and E. coli organisms to function as binary logic gates — an essential part of computers that store and process information.
The ultimate goal, Ditto said, is to create “living computers.”
At this stage, Ditto’s research is limited to computer simulations, but those work beautifully, he said, and ASU is pursuing patents on the work.
“We haven’t built anything yet,” he said. “That will take several years.”
He added that synthetic biology, while still highly experimental, has enormous promise.
“We could one day design an organism that goes after cancer cells and destroys them,” Ditto said.
Synthetic biology could also create something more sinister, Ditto said.
He added that the basic gene sequences for polio and the 1918 flu pandemic are available on the Internet.
These ethical concerns were the focus of the Atlanta meeting of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues on Nov. 16 and 17.
The commission met at Emory University to discuss the emerging field of synthetic biology and the ethical implications of the science.
The commission’s goal is to identify and promote “practices that ensure scientific research, health care delivery and technological innovation are conducted in an ethically responsible manner,” according to its website.
The commission, created in November 2009, is worried about what Ditto calls “biohackers” — amateur scientists working privately to create organisms.
The growing number of biohackers worries many in the scientific community, Ditto said, because they could accidentally produce something dangerous.
The mainstream scientific community uses computer simulations to test potential creations, but biohackers test by doing and could potentially make something dangerous by accident.
“They’ll take a cell and reprogram it without quite knowing what it does,” Ditto said.
Xiao Wang, assistant professor in bioengineering at ASU, said the good outweighs the bad.
“There is enormous potential,” he said. “Regulation and caution will prevent unwanted results.”
Currently, it would be nearly impossible for someone to create something dangerous, Ditto said.
He added that scientists are considering adding “kill switches” to organisms as a way to control them, which are certain coded gene sequences that, when introduced to an organism, could destroy it if the organism got out of hand.
“The upside here is enormous, and I don’t think the downsides offset that, but it’s good to be careful,” he said.
ASU is one of the leading universities in synthetic biology, Ditto said.
He added that given proper time and funding, ASU could emerge as a top researcher in the science.
“There are so many great things we can do,” he said. “This should be the place to be in the field.”
Reach the reporter at alex.ferri@asu.edu
