[wickworks]

Hello Jason Kelly and Patrick! I've been interested in synthetic biology for awhile now and am currently in the process of organizing a new iGEM team for my university. Did either of you compete in iGEM, and if so, how did it shape your perception of synthetic biology? Also, what advice would you give to a biochem student interested in pursuing SB as a career?

[randomscientist]

I believe Jason was on the first iGEM team! A lot of us at Ginkgo have been judges for iGEM, and many of our DNA Padawans are former iGEMers. iGEM is a great forum for synthetic biology because it encourages students to develop their research in creative and socially responsible ways.

In terms of SB as a career, the field is moving so fast it's better to focus on problem solving than techniques. Cloning will be obsolete soon; how would you design biological systems when you can synthesize any DNA sequence you want?

[wickworks]

That's awesome! My school is small and doesn't have the same resources that some of the other schools do, but I'm going to push really hard to get a team started there.

I'm considering applying for the DNA Padawan internship after I graduate. Gingko Bioworks seems like a great place to work, and I bet I would learn techniques that are closer to the cutting edge than what I would learn in grad school.

I haven't tried my hand at SB yet (though I will soon!) but I suppose if I could synthesize any DNA sequence I wanted quickly and cheaply I would rely more heavily on computational intelligence approaches to come up with many solutions. Then I suppose you could print the DNA and test those solutions quickly, feed the data back to the algorithm and it would get better at designing future systems. (Computer science isn't my background, so I may have used some of those terms improperly).

Thanks for the reply randomscientist, you've made one (hopefully) future iGEMer really happy.