this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
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Futurology
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It's thought-provoking to wonder where synthetic biology technology will be in ten years' time. Its development is being accelerated by the rapid advances in AI. Deepmind's AlphaFold illustrates that trend in action.
If a fully synthetic yeast cell is just one year away - how soon will there be a fully synthetic multicellular organism? Evolution has created millions of varieties of those over billions of years, will AI be even more capable?
probably not the first thing that springs to mind when thinking synthetic yeasts, but I cannot wait for a yeast that gives raspberry flavours to beer and can ferment at basically any temperature.
evolution is mainly a haphazard process where something gets carried over because it offers some advantage to the organism at that specific time in that specific environment (be it looks, as might be the case of humans, or survival as in antibiotic resistance for bacteria).
going back to brewing, humans have been breeding yeasts for fun and profit since we discovered we like beer/wine/mead and everything else that ferments. a less haphazard process but still error-prone, to be sure.
I would be skeptical about any significant developments in multi-cellular organisms, though. that involves a lot of moving parts that need to talk to each other in just the right way. also some ethical challenges there, which will most certainly come up (remember cloning?). for a sneak preview, just look at unethical dog breeders.
AI is just a one piece of the puzzle, honestly. CRISPr is fully online now, and new imaging techniques and projects are also coming. Biology is going to be on fire for the next couple decades.