<div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-size: large;"><b>STS Circle at Harvard</b></span></div>
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<div><font size="+1"><b>Emma Frow</b></font></div>
<div><i>Program on Science, Technology, and Society, Harvard </i></div>
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<div><font color="#000000">on</font></div>
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<div><b><span style="line-height: 115%;" lang="EN-GB"><font size="4">Making Big Promises Come True? Articulating and Realizing the Value of Synthetic Biology</font></span></b></div>
<div><font color="#000000">Monday, October 31st</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">12:15-2:00 p.m.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 100, Room
106</font></div>
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<div><font color="#000000">Lunch is provided if you RSVP.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">Please RSVP to</font> <a href="mailto:sts@hks.harvard.edu" target="_blank"><font color="#000000">sts</font></a><a href="mailto:sts@hks.harvard.edu" target="_blank"><font color="#000000">@hks.harvard.edu</font></a><font color="#000000"> by
5pm Thursday, October 27th.</font></div>
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<div><b>Abstract:</b> <span lang="EN-GB">Synthetic
biology has gained visibility over the past decade as an approach to
biotechnology that prioritizes the use of engineering principles and practices to
design and make new organisms. </span><span lang="EN-GB">Synthetic biologists aspire to turn biology
into an engineering discipline, and this aspiration is associated with big
promises — not least a new ‘industrial revolution’ in the use of biological
organisms for purposes including drug production, industrial processing,
environmental remediation, and personalized medicine.</span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The
‘BioBrick<sup>TM</sup> standard biological part’ epitomizes this engineering
approach to biology; named with explicit reference to Lego® bricks, BioBricks
are standardized DNA components designed to enable easy and reliable assembly
of genetic ‘circuits’ for engineering new organisms. </span><span lang="EN-GB">Over
the past decade a growing international community of synthetic biologists has
been working to develop technologies, standards, measurement tools, and
infrastructure to support the creation and curation of collections of modular,
interchangeable genetic parts. </span><span lang="EN-GB">In practice, several tensions are becoming apparent as this
mechanistic and engineering-led vision of biotechnology is articulated with
respect to more biologically grounded understandings and practices for working
with living organisms. In this seminar I will draw on my research on standards
development in synthetic biology to explore some of the frictions and
ambiguities involved in trying to standardize life according to engineering
ideals.</span></p>
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<div><b>Biography</b>: Emma
Frow is a Research Fellow with the Program on Science, Technology & Society
at the Kennedy School of Government, and a Lecturer in Science & Technology
Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Emma originally trained as a
bioscientist, and has a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge.
After her PhD, she worked at the journal Nature for two years before moving to
the ESRC Genomics Policy & Research Forum in Edinburgh. Emma completed an
MSc in STS at Edinburgh in 2009. Her research interests revolve around processes
of standard-setting in domains including scientific publishing and synthetic
biology. Since 2008 she has helped to run the UK Synthetic Biology Standards
Network, a multidisciplinary research network funded by the UK Research
Councils. She is also part of a new EU project on standards development in
synthetic biology, which will run from 2012-2015.</div>
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<div><font color="#000000">A complete list of STS Circle at Harvard
events can be found on our website:</font></div>
<div><a href="http://www.hks.harvard.edu/sts/events/sts_circle/" target="_blank"><font color="#000000">http://www.hks.harvard.edu/sts/events/sts_circle/</font></a></div>
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