Innovation seems to be the mother of invention. Looking deeply into complex and complicated sequence of bio that gives us the map to follow. What is most fascinating is that the amount of data that can be condensed down into the smallest particle. One of the most amazing discoveries I have come across recently is the concept of genetically engineered machines and the very real possibility of storing digital files...in living cells! It all sounds like science fiction.
What's the future without super-intelligent computers? Well, nothing at all, if listeners Ron Bobker of Oakville, Ontario and Jeremy Nowack of Southampton, Ontario, are correct. Bobker predicts computers as intelligent as humans in the next 100 years or so, and Nowack anticipates that this will lead to humans downloading their minds into computers and achieving digital immortality.
Dr. Chris Eliasmith, Canada Research Chair in Theoretical Neuroscience and director of the Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience at the University of Waterloo, says yes and no to this prediction. Intelligent computers might be on the horizon, or, in fact, they may be here already, but part of our problem is deciding what we call intelligent.
Is it what the computer can do? Is it how it does it? Since we don't really know how to define human intelligence, it's difficult to do it for a computer as well. Nevertheless, he's sure that increasing sophistication of computers will, at the very least, make this problem more difficult. On the other hand, downloading the mind is not quite so easy to predict. The biggest problem is that we don't know how to capture the fabulously complex state of the human brain to do the transfer.
On another advanced technology of combining genetic information with computer technology, some of the latest advancements in this field have shown that information can be written into cellular structures.
The Synthetic Biology community had its International World Jamboree last November in Cambridge USA. The categories for the competitions inclduded teams from high school students, universities and entrepreneurs.
George Church, Ph.D. Is one of Science's top most innovators. Just a look at his bio is quite impressive!
Platform Lead, Synthetic Biology
Dr. Church leads the Synthetic Biology Platform, where he oversees the directed evolution of molecules, polymers, and whole genomes to create new tools with applications in regenerative medicine and bioenergy. Among his recent work at the Wyss is development of a technology for synthesizing whole genes, and potentially whole gene circuits, that is faster, more accurate, and significantly less expensive than current methods.
Dr. Church is widely recognized for his innovative contributions to genomic science and his many pioneering contributions to chemistry and biomedicine. In 1984, he developed the first direct genomic sequencing method, which resulted in the first commercial genome sequence (the human pathogen, H. pylori). He helped initiate the Human Genome Project in 1984 and the Personal Genome Project in 2005.
Dr. Church invented the broadly applied concepts of molecular multiplexing and tags, homologous recombination methods, and array DNA synthesizers. His many innovations have been the basis for a number of companies including Joule Unlimited, Inc. (solar fuels); LS9, Inc. (bio-petroleum); and Knome (full human genome sequencing).
Dr. Church is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is Director of the U.S. Department of Energy Center on Bioenergy at Harvard and MIT and Director of the National Institutes of Health Center of Excellence in Genomic Science at Harvard. His has received numerous awards including the 2011 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science from the Franklin Institute, the 2009 Promega Biotechnology Research Award from the American Society for Microbiology, and the number four spot on the 2008 list of The Scientist's top ten innovations.
Drew Endy, an Assitant Professor from Stanford University has some amazing research into bio engineering as well.
(Esquire has named him one of the most influential people of the 21st Century. So if you haven't heard of him, get to know him.) The potential for his technology is limitless.
Here is what Endy has to say: "The immediate goal of our research is to enable the engineering of genetically encoded memory systems. Modest amounts of programmable memory, if implemented within living organisms, would have profound impacts on the study and treatment of diseases and would broadly enable non-medical applications of biotechnology. We are interested in both the basic and applied aspects of the problem, from considering how to best store information inside cells to practical applications. Our overall long term goal is to help make biology easy to engineer, an area of research known as synthetic biology."
Another active participant in this field is Justin Pahara, of Synbiota Inc. This company, Synbiota offers collaborative IT tools and research services to the high-growth biotech and life science industries. We strive to remove barriers in scientific information workflows to substantially reduce research and develelopment costs that presently amounts to billions spent annually.
Pahara has almost a decade of bioengineering experience as well as
extensive knowledge of synthetic biology tech, markets, and work-flows.
Justin is passionate about biology as a technology and believes that
with just a little more tinkering, many of humanities greatest
challenges can be overcome using biology. Justin studied at the
University of Cambridge, Singularity University (Google Fellow), and the
University of Alberta,
