This article is from the public number:Arterial Network (ID: vcbeat), author: Zhou dream Asia, drawing from the title: vision China

In 1953, Watson and Crick discovered the structure of the DNA double helix, which opened the first biotechnology revolution, and life science research entered the era of molecular biology.


In 2003, the completion of the human genome map marked the arrival of the second biotechnology revolution, and the life-selective research field ushered in the era of omics and systems biology.

So what is the third biotechnology revolution? After the realization of the “reading” of genes, the development of DNA synthesis and gene editing technology has enabled people to gradually realize the leap from “reading” to “writing”. The concept of biology begins to combine with engineering concepts, and the era of synthetic biology Or will lead the third biotechnology revolution.

The concept of synthetic biology was first publicly proposed by Polish scientist W. Szybalski in 1978. It is a discipline that combines biological science with engineering and has gradually become a hot spot for investment in the past two years.

According to Crunchbase, the total amount of financing in the field of synthetic biology in 2018 was as high as $3.8 billion, and the heat continued to rise in 2019. In the first half of 2019, 65 synthetic biology companies raised a total of $1.9 billion, and 2019Q2 was the highest in the history. Crunchbase expects that if investment maintains this rate, it will increase its investment by 33% in 2019, and the total amount will be the same as the previous year’s $3.8 billion.

Figure: Total Investment in Synthetic Biology Industry 2016-2019

On the other hand, the investment and financing environment in the global sector in the past two years is not good, and it is not easy for institutional fundraising to make it difficult for startup financing. Many companies and institutions have made plans to “tighten their pockets for the winter.”

But everyone’s enthusiasm for investment in the medical field has not decreased, and these funds have flowed more into the field of technological innovation. The field of synthetic biology is one of the main directions.

Among them, Ginkgo Bioworks set a current financing record of $290 million in the field of biotechnology. Through interviews and data mining in the industry, we analyze the main reasons for the investment in synthetic biology, includingThe following points.

1. Efficient, clean, low-cost, emerging technologies that meet market expectations

2, gene sequencing and editing costs are both reduced, DNA synthesis breaks through cost constraints

3. The upstream breakthrough drives the industry to accelerate development

4, “IT” technology spoils, synthetic efficiency achieves leap

5, the commercial success of the unicorn will inspire more people to participate

Efficient, clean, low cost, in line with market expectations of emerging technologies

Why is synthetic biology so hot? To answer this question, we first need to understand what synthetic biology can do.

1, lower cost, has many advantages over chemical synthesis

Synthetic biology usually acquires new metabolic pathways through the transformation of existing biological systems, or by artificially synthesizing genomes and reconstructing living organisms from the beginning, and through this new metabolic pathway to obtain new metabolites. Therefore, unlike the chemical synthesis method, the biosynthesis method does not require the establishment of a large chemical plant, nor does it require a large number of workers as in a chemical plant.

Although it takes a lot of money to build microbial transformations and production lines, as with chemical synthesis, production costs will be controlled as production scale increases. At the same time, these modified microorganisms are self-propagating. Therefore, while reducing labor costs, synthetic biology can also obtain target products more efficiently and at low cost.

The founder of Kasai Biology, Liu Xiucai, was invited by the state to take charge of the “vitamin C” science and technology project in 1995. In just one year, the use of biological methods for large-scale production has made the cost of vitamin C reach the limit. The global production capacity of vitamin C has been rapidly concentrated in China and continues to this day. Blue crystal microbes synthesize PHA by modifying halophilic strains, and currently reduce production costs by more than 50%. These are all examples of synthetic organisms that reduce production costs.

In addition, some compounds that are difficult to achieve in chemical synthesis pathways may be relatively easy to synthesize using biosynthetic pathways, such as mass production of artemisinin. More importantly, biosynthesis is more environmentally friendly than most heavily polluted chemical synthesis methods.. Clean, efficient, and low-cost, these advantages make synthetic biology quickly capture the hearts of most people. Especially in today’s advocating green environment, biosynthesis methods undoubtedly conform to the development needs of the times.

2, “creation”, excavation of new compounds

In addition to being used in production, another application of synthetic biology is the synthesis of matter, which may be acquired by a large amount of material and financial resources, or even in nature. We can note that after the 21st century, the discovery of new antibiotics, compound molecules, and new materials has almost entered the bottleneck.

In the case of antibiotics, although there are many types of antibiotics available on the market, there are only a dozen chemical institutions, and there may be dozens or hundreds of categories under each type. In the nearly 30 years of research, only two new types of antibiotics were discovered.

There are many types of compounds in nature, but they are limited. After entering the 21st century, the development of many molecular materials has entered a stage of stagnation. After 2001, the eyes of drug research and development began to turn to biopharmaceuticals.

Everyone is looking forward to more innovation at the molecular level, both in materials and in the medical field. There is a need for a technology that enables “creation” to achieve new discoveries about materials, compounds, and even energy. The emergence of synthetic biology is exactly what people expect.

Gene sequencing and editing costs are both reduced, DNA synthesis breaks through cost constraints

There is no doubt that the technology of synthetic biology meets many of the demands of production and manufacturing. But this concept has been proposed in the last century. Why did it suddenly heat up in the past two years? In fact, this is not an accident. The above mentioned many advantages of synthetic biology, which also meet the expectations of the market. But these are still at the demand level, and behind the rapid growth of financing, the bigger driving force is the supply of technology, that is, the breakthrough of the underlying technology.

Synthetic biology involves changes or even remodeling of microbial metabolic systems. This process involves the synthesis and assembly of DNA. Gene editing and high-throughput sequencing are important supporting technologies. Although these two technologies have been around for a long time, they are subject to cost and technology limitations, and commercial applications related to gene sequencing and gene editing have only begun to appear in recent years.

Let’s review the history of biotechnology development in the past two years, 2012 Il