Nov 18, 2015 7:00 AM

Gallery: Move Over, Jony Ive—Biologists Are the Next Rock Star Designers

Maggie Shannon for WIRED
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Ginkgo BioWorks is a biotech company whose biological engineers refer to themselves as organism designers.
Maggie Shannon for WIRED
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As biology becomes more standardized, scientists are able to manipulate biological parts with the reproducibility typically reserved for engineering.

Maggie Shannon for WIRED
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This opens an entire world of biological "design" and the considerations that come with that term.
Maggie Shannon for WIRED
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Despite having trained as scientists, many synthetic biologists are slowly acknowledging that design thinking, in addition to technical understanding, is an essential skill.

Maggie Shannon for WIRED
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The person who designs genetic architecture does so with aesthetic, utilitarian, and social considerations in mind.
Maggie Shannon for WIRED
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Ginkgo is mostly producing flavors and fragrances made from strains of yeast.

Maggie Shannon for WIRED
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As the field of synthetic biology matures, its responsibilities will begin to align more and more with those of designers.
Maggie Shannon for WIRED
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Design will continue to be part of the synthetic biology conversation.

Maggie Shannon for WIRED
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The company has a foundry in its Boston offices.
Maggie Shannon for WIRED
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This allows scientists to spend more time thinking about how biology works instead of pipetting liquids.

Maggie Shannon for WIRED
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The robots in the foundry take care of all the tedious lab tasks that usually fall to scientists.

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