Transforming Modern Agriculture Through Synthetic Genomics

In this talk, I will cover a few topics. First, I will describe some of the cutting-edge science that’s underway and how we are applying it within Synthetic Genomics, not specifically on specialty crops as defined, but on low-acreage or potential crops of the future. Many of these concepts will apply to specialty crops. We can think about progress in synthetic biology, much in the way that children progress through school (Figure ). First, in 995, whole-genome sequences were published for two simple bacterial species (Haemophilus influenzae and Mycoplasma genitalium), which, in the late 990s, were followed by publication of several plant genomes, culminating in 00 with the publication of the draft sequence of the human genome. That was equivalent to learning to read, as in early grade school, begging the question: “If we can read the genetic code, can we begin to write it?” In 003, the synthesis of a small viral genome was achieved, at a little over 5,000 base pairs. In 006, effort was initiated to chemically synthesize a bacterial cell. The result was published by J. Craig Venter Institute researchers in 0 0: fundamentally, this organism came from nature and we recapitulated it with a few additional sequences.