On Synthetic Biology – watch the debate

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

‘Synthetic Biology: challenges and opportunities for the UK‘ took place on Wednesday, across two sites in London and Bristol. My esteemed Royal Society of Chemistry colleague James Hutchinson described our attempt to video link between two sites as a fitting level of ambition, considered in the context of the challenges we face if we are going to use synthetic biology to tackle the ‘grand challenges’ (primarily in food and fuel). You can see how it looked from my perspective here. (In the picture from left to right are: Professor Robert Edwards; Helena Paul; Daisy Ginsberg; Dr Lionel Clarke; Professor Dek Woolfson (in Bristol) and our London Chair, Dr Ehsan Masood.)

You can watch the whole debate at The Reaction here and find links to other write-ups and summaries on the Biochemical Society listing.

There is a lot of buzz around synthetic biology at the moment – there was even before senior government ministers started mentioning it in speeches at the Royal Society – but we are not anywhere near where we would need the technology to be for it to assure us of its widespread application yet. Indeed, as could be expected, we heard on Wednesday that before we can consider what we can do, we need to consider what we should do. Dr Clarke assured us that that was part of the point of setting out a Roadmap for the development of the technology so early (you can read David Willetts’ response to this from November 2 here). It is probably worth noting that the final report of the BIS Foresight project Global Food and Farming Futures (2011) did not give much reference at all to synthetic biology, except in the context of precaution around public opinion.

In this context, I recommend watching the debate back (it starts at 3:12). Apologies for a couple of sound issues around the mid-point.

ESOF – European parallels, career tips, and a new peer review guide

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

I attended ESOF (the Euroscience Open Forum) on Friday, in the fair city of Dublin. I took a lot away from it (not least that riding a Vespa to Gatwick isn’t a very good idea). As I’m shortly to take the best part of three weeks off for the Olympics, I will have plenty of food for thought, particularly on careers, on which I attended a number of sessions.

ESOF is a huge, biennial behemoth (the next one will be held in Copenhagen) but in a good way – I was very impressed. On Friday, the sessions ran from 8:00 to 18:30, with around ten parallel sessions at a time and no designated breaks (I took the opportunity of a Bob Geldof keynote to duck out and get a sandwich). The UK is perhaps not as engaged in the European science ideal as other countries, but on first reflection, I noted that many of the discussions were similar to those going on in the UK. Here are my scribbles from Máire Geoghegan-Quinn’s keynote speech, the current European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science (excuse the roughness):

• Politicians should deploy the scientific method whenever possible, need to remind of that
• Science vital for future – and intellectual inquiry will always explore most profound ideas
• Higgs – excitement across all ages, groups and countries
• Challenge-driven research important, but curiosity-driven research leads to great discoveries – silicon chips (Bohr), WWW
• Challenge-driven research also brings fundamental benefits – e.g. aero wings and fluid dynamics
• Horizon 2020 – not everyone happy with large settlement, so keep making the case
• ERA – single market for ideas in Europe – increased competition and cooperation between member states (existing example of CERN). Goes live soon. Another important strand is Open Access. Need everyone to line up behind ERA – will deliver science excellence for Europe. Will rely on political will and trust
• March of progress will rely on centrality of science and public trust – must communicate well e.g. on synthetic biology (the same day, ‘A synthetic biology roadmap for the UK‘ was published)
• Thriving intersectoral ecosystem is necessary for solving problems
• Already examples of successful collaborations and things going on in background – Grand Challenges a good and relatively cheap way of stimulating it
• DARPA – $1m for driverless car. Led to many partnerships
• Human Genome Project – for each $ spent, $140 generated
• Open access will help collaboration. People cannot always be co-located, but could be huge enabling factor – individuals, poorer countries, SMEs – which then pump money back into local community – more tax – more research funding…
• Should we be aiming to get tangible outputs back from publicly funded research?
• We must support both forms of research. This is where ideal spin-off situation arises
• Can’t aim to capitalise on specific things before know what outcomes will be.

Elsewhere, I heard some interesting tips from Dr Silvia Giordani from Trinity College Dublin on careers:

1. “Change is good… Being crazy is rewarded in the end.”
2. “Learn as much as you can early, and you can put it together later.”
3. “Network, network, network!”

Peer review guide launched

The previous day, Sense About Science launched their ‘Peer Review: The nuts and bolts’ guide at the conference. Despite the quickening evolution of the publishing landscape, peer review – as I heard at a recent(ish) meeting of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee – remains the gold standard for determining the soundness of scientific papers, and misconceptions (particularly about open access journals) can be damaging.

The guide was produced by Sense About Science’s Voice of Young Science network, and provides a quick reference how peer-review works and how to do it. Helpfully, it features guidance from both sides of the fence – both editors and scientists at different stages of their careers, as well as other observers such as James Randerson from the Guardian. It is definitely recommended reading, although it acknowledges that formal training in the art of reviewing is variable in amount and availability.

If you were at ESOF too, let me know!

Peer Review: The nuts and bolts (PDF): http://www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/99/Peer-review_The-nuts-and-bolts.pdf
Further reading (Science Careers blog): Become a Reviewer: Advancing and Contributing in the Scientific Establishment

Synthetic biology reaffirmed as research priority

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

David Willetts showed how busy his department had been over Christmas with a speech last week at the Policy Exchange. As well as the headline announcement of an invitation for new kinds of postgraduate universities for SET to be set up and several other points (see Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) news story for brief summary), the Minister for Universities and Science also gave further indication of BIS’ growing commitment to synthetic biology.

Willetts is always quick to point to his commitment to the Haldane principle, but says that the Government must make some funding priorities. In December’s Strategy for UK Life Sciences and Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth, we read that the Technology Strategy Board (who’s Director of Innovation Programmes, Dr David Bott, will join us at the next Policy Lunchbox event*) have identified synthetic biology as “a key emerging technology with the potential to create a billion pound industry within the UK in the next decade”. As with graphene, Willetts is – perhaps justifiably under the straitened economic circumstances under which he cannot even offer any funding for his new universities plan – trying to pick economic winners. Like it or not, we must hope that having made such commitments, they prove to be successful.

Shell’s Dr Lionel Clarke is currently chairing a group producing a ‘synthetic biology roadmap’, aiming to show how the UK can become a leader in this field, and last week the Minister declared that he was setting up a ‘leadership council’ to decide how this can be delivered, once finalised in the Spring. It seems that part of the Government’s plans to ‘make the UK the best place in the world to do science’ (expect to see more of this mantra from BIS in 2012) is to establish synthetic biology as strategic area of strength. If successful, it could open up our bioenergy industry; bring new, patentable developments in healthcare and have important applications in agriculture. Let’s hope it gets enough of that all important capital funding to have a chance.

* Policy Lunchbox is fully booked, but if you have a question for David please email me at james.lush@biochemistry.org (the event will be held on 26 January).