Biotech: the ultimate guide
Biotechnology, as the name implies, is the marriage of technology with biology. Generally it refers to the use of biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use.
Depending on the tools and applications, it often overlaps with the fields of bioinformatics, bioengineering and biomedical engineering. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll treat all biotech related technologies in the same chapter.
Ingestibles
Doctors are using ingestible sensors dotted with sophisticated technologies to help them diagnose patients. Some, like PillCam, are more than ten years old.
Developed by an Israeli company, PillCam is a pill that uses a miniaturized camera contained in a disposable capsule that naturally passes through the digestive system, allowing physicians to directly view the esophagus, small intestine, and the entire colon, without sedation or radiation.
In 2012 the FDA approved an ingestible sensor the size of a grain of sand that is integrated into pills and lets doctors know when patients take their medicine and when they don’t. The sensor does not have batteries.
After being ingested the chip will interact with digestive juices to produce a voltage that can be read from the surface of the skin through a detector patch, which then sends a signal via mobile phone to inform the doctor that the pill has been taken. Sensors on the chip also detect heart rate and can estimate the patient’s amount of physical activity.
Researchers at MIT developed an ingestible pill that has the potential to replace daily injections used by diabetes patients. The pill is coated with tiny needles that can deliver drugs directly into the lining of the digestive tract.
Nanobots
Nanobots may be our medical future. These tiny robots are capable of drug delivery inside our bodies, detecting diseases and, in the near future, even repairing or manipulating damaged cells. There are two types of nanobots: biological and mechanical.
Recently-made mechanical nanobots measure about 1/50 of the diameter of a human hair. We’re talking about real micro-machines powered by micro-motors propelled either by chemical reactions inside the body or electromagnetism.
In December 2014, San Diego researchers published a paper proving that mechanical nanobots can travel inside a living creature and deliver their medicinal load without any detrimental effects.
A mouse ingested these tiny machines and they reached its stomach. There, the nanobots headed outwards toward the stomach lining where they then embedded themselves, dissolved, and delivered a nanoparticle compound directly into the gut tissue.
Biological nanobots are even smaller, measuring just a few dozen nanometers in diameter, the size of a typical virus. Researchers have developed DNA-made nanobots that could seek out specific cell targets and deliver important molecular instructions. These nano-scale robots use DNA strands that fold and unfold like origami.
In 2014, scientists at Harvard University and Bar IIan University in Israel have successfully injected these tiny living DNA nanobots into live cockroaches to deliver drugs directly into the insects’ cells.
Biological nanobots can function like primitive computers, carrying out simple tasks such as telling cancer cells to self-destruct. In a decade or so, they’ll have the equivalent computing power of a video-game console from the 80s. Inspired by the mechanics of the body’s own immune system, the technology might one day be used to program immune responses to treat various diseases with astonishing precision.
In 2015, biological nanobots will be tried in a critically-ill leukemia patient. The patient will receive an injection containing a trillion DNA nanobots designed to interact with and destroy leukemia cells (with an expected zero collateral damage in healthy tissue). The cancer is expected to be destroyed in one month.
Mind boggling.
Genetic engineering
Genetic modification is not novel. Humans have been altering the genetic makeup of plants for millennia, keeping seeds from the best crops and planting them in the following years, breeding and crossbreeding varieties to make them taste sweeter, grow bigger, last longer.
We’ve been doing the same with pets in a process called artificial selection. Humans choose which animals will live based on their most desired characteristics. It only took us 15,000 to 20,000 years to turn a gray wolf into all of the dog breeds we see today. The same happened with cows, horses, and sheep.
But the technique of genetic engineering is new and quite different from conventional breeding. This technique gave rise to the infamous genetically modified organisms or GMOs.
GMOs are plants or animals that have undergone a process wherein scientists alter their genes with DNA from different species of living organisms, bacteria, or viruses to get desired traits such as resistance to disease, insects, or tolerance of pesticides.
GMOs are part of our life. You have probably already eaten genetically modified tomatoes, corn, or papaya. It is estimated that 80% of the processed food in the US contains at least one GMO crop.
An enormous variety of GMOs has been developed in recent years, from genetically-engineered trees, an environmentally friendly pig, to a genetically-modified Atlantic salmon, engineered to grow twice as large and twice as fast as regular salmon.
Countries all around the world are joining the GMO frenzy. West Africa will soon experience bananas with Vitamin A, Israel developed bizarre featherless chickens to improve production, and China has cows that produce human milk.
We don’t need to be experts in this field to understand the implications. GMOs will get more sophisticated in the next decades and entire industries such as agriculture and livestock farming may rely on them. GMOs might end up being the only hope to feed an ever-growing world population.
Most scientists agree that genetically-modified foods do not represent a higher health risk to consumers than traditional food. Their opinion is backed by many scientific studies conducted over the years.
Nevertheless, as there are enormous interests at stake, people are still skeptical about GM food and the science behind it. They demand long-term studies to validate GM food safety and also more oversight by the government. The tobacco industry is always used as an example on what corporations can do if they go unchecked.
However, while most of us are concerned with GM food safety, the most important innovation brought by GMO — the combat of diseases — is being left out of the debate.
South Korean scientists, for instance, created fluorescent dogs to help combat AIDS. In Brazil, GM mosquitoes are being used to contain Dengue’s fever spread. US scientists have genetically engineered viruses to kill cancer.
There is a revolution coming that could save millions of lives and benefit all mankind. This revolution will be facilitated by a new technology called CRISPR, that will make genetic engineering easy and affordable to most scientists.
Regenerative medicine
In 1997, scientists in the US were able to grow a human ear on the back of a lab rat. The images of the small Frankenstein rodent sent shockwaves around the world. Many people protested against what they thought was a bizarre and cruel experiment. Recently, Japan started to tinker with growing human organs inside pigs.
These examples, resembling the script of The Island of Dr. Moreau, are actually part of regenerative medicine, a rapidly developing field with the potential to transform the treatment of human disease through the development of innovative new therapies that offer a faster, more complete recovery with significantly fewer side effects or risk of complications.
Actually, we’re close to real breakthroughs. Scientists have grown kidneys, lungs, and even hearts in laboratories. For now, they belong to animals, but human trials might start in the next five years.
London’s Royal Free hospital is growing noses, ears, and blood vessels made from stem cells. King’s College had success with skin using the same technique. In Poland, a paralyzed man walked for the first time after cells from his nose were transplanted to his spine.
Imagine a world where there is no organ donor shortage, where victims of spinal-cord injuries can walk, and where weakened hearts are replaced. In conjunction with other tech such as bionic implants and 3D printing, this is the long-term promise of regenerative medicine.
Genome sequencing
In 1990, the US Congress established funding for the Human Genome Project and set a target completion date of 2005. The goal of the HGP was to sequence and map all of the genes — together known as the genome — of our species. It was the equivalent in biology to the “moonshot” of the 1960s.
At the time, many critics thought the project wouldn’t be good science. Part of the scientific community doubted it could be finished on budget and on time, as we didn’t possess the technology to pursue the challenge in 1990. Of course the pundits were wrong, betrayed by their linear thinking.
Not only was the Human Genome Project completed two years sooner than previously planned, but it also cost less than the initial budget. A parallel project was conducted outside of the government by Celera Genomics, which was formally launched in 1998 and completed just three years later.
The US government’s $4 billion investment in the HGP helped to drive down the cost of sequencing a genome from any person. In 2001, it cost $100 million. In 2015, a company announced a full genome sequencing for only $1,000. The results can now be known in hours rather than months.
Diagnostic medicine was one of the immediate beneficiaries of the plummeting costs of sequencing a human genome. There are now 2000+ genetic tests available to physicians to aid in the diagnosis and therapy for 1000+ different diseases.
Having the complete sequence of the human genome is similar to having all the pages of a manual needed to make the human body. Researchers and scientists are now determining how to read the contents of all these pages.
Individualized analysis based on each person’s genome might lead to a powerful form of preventive and personalized medicine. By tailoring recommendations to each person’s DNA, doctors will be able to work with individuals on the specific strategies that are most likely to maintain health for that particular individual.
Genome sequencing seems to be poised to improve healthcare in ways that were not possible before.
Organ-on-a-chip
You read it right. Scientists are creating organs-on-a-chip to improve ways of predicting drug safety and effectiveness. So far these organs include the lung, intestine, heart, liver, skin, bone marrow, pancreas, kidney, eye, and even a system that mimics the blood-brain barrier.
The idea is to recreate the smallest functional unit of any particular organ in a micro-environment that closely imitates the human body.
An organ-on-a-chip is a microfluidic cell culture device created with microchip manufacturing methods that contains continuously perfused chambers inhabited by living cells arranged to simulate tissue — and organ — level physiology. The device looks like a futuristic alien artifact.
Organs-on-a-chip are a mind-blowing technology that could exponentially accelerate the development of new drugs and eventually replace animals used in lab testing. In the future, all organs-on-a-chip may be put together to create a human-in-a-chip to speed up drug development.
I highly recommend watching this TED talk if you want to understand how organs-on-a-chip work. Here you can find a list of US universities currently researching the technology.
Anti-aging tech
In the last 150 years, developed countries almost doubled the average life expectancy of their populations. The victories against infectious and parasitic diseases were a triumph for public health projects of the 20th century, which immunized millions of people against smallpox, polio, and major childhood killers like measles.
Even earlier, better living standards, especially more nutritious diets and cleaner drinking water, began to reduce serious infections and prevent deaths among children.
In theory, there is no age ceiling for life if we’re able to solve the diseases that afflict our species and some of the mechanisms that contribute to aging. Scientists believe we can extend the human lifespan to 150–200 years in our lifetime and that technology will solve any biological limitations.
Recently, due to exponential advancements in biotechnology, many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs were encouraged to embark in the anti-aging crusade. Some are doing it for vanity while others want to contribute to the betterment of mankind. All of them see enormous financial opportunities in this field.
Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, was one of the first Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to donate to the cause. He has been investing in an anti-aging technologies and research for more than 15 years through his Ellison Medical Foundation.
The Palo Alto Longevity Prize is giving $1 million to any team that first demonstrates innovations with the potential to end aging, such as restoring the body’s homeostatic capacity or promoting the extension of a sustained and healthy lifespan of a mammal by 50%. This type of incentive prize has generated great results in areas such as private space exploration and affordable healthcare.
The startup Human Longevity uses both genomics and stem-cell therapies to find treatments that allow aging adults to stay healthy and functional for long as possible.
In 2014, Google has announced an investment of up to $750 million in their own Calico, a company headed by the former CEO of Genentech; its mission is to “reverse engineer the biology that controls lifespan and devise interventions that enable people to lead longer and healthier lives”.
Larry Page, the founder of Google, is adamant that one day we’ll solve death. Billionaires such as Peter Thiel, famous for his investments in Facebook, Airbnb, and Palantir, have made the cause even more public.
It is estimated that it’ll take around five to10 years to see concrete progress in this field. Maybe we’ll double our lifespan again in the next decades. If our technology delivers on its promises, there would be profound transformations in how we live our lives, how we plan our careers, and even how we run our countries.
Synthetic life
In the last decades, our species was able to copy life and to modify it radically through genetic engineering. Soon, for the first time in human history, we’ll be able to create artificial life that could never have existed naturally.
Craig Venter, the entrepreneur and scientist responsible for privately sequencing the human genome, announced in 2010 that his team had built the genome of a bacterium from scratch and incorporated it into a cell to make what they called “the world’s first synthetic life form”.
Dr. Venter described the converted cell as “the first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer”. The single-celled organism has four “watermarks” written into its DNA to identify it as synthetic and help trace its descendants back to their creator.
Some scientists dismissed the announcement arguing the synthetic genome was almost identical to the biological one, proving that the created bacterium was actually semi-synthetic. The controversy still continues to this day but certainly the experiment paved the way for organisms that are built rather than evolved.
In 2014, more breakthroughs in synthetic biology were achieved. The first synthetic yeast chromosome was developed and the first living organism to carry and pass down to future generations an expanded genetic code was created by American scientists.
Venter is now focused on creating a machine called a digital biological converter capable of biological teleportation. It works similarly to a fax machine or a 3D printer. One would send the digital code for a new DNA piece and the DBC would receive and rewrite it into genetic code on the spot.
Building an entire genome from scratch is still a daunting task, but many scientists believe it may be possible within the next 10 years. With it will come synthetic living systems made to order to solve a range of problems, from producing new drugs to creating biofuels. Or we would create them just for fun, as pets.
The scientific and philosophical consequences of biotech breakthroughs might change the world forever. Our society is transitioning from the age of scientific discovery to the age of scientific mastery.
ps: this article was written in 2015 and might not be fully updated.
