合成生物与生物安全

Synthetic Life and Biosecurity

        马延和(中国科学院天津工业生物技术研究所 天津 300308)
        江会锋(中国科学院天津工业生物技术研究所 天津 300308)
        娄春波(中国科学院微生物研究所 北京 100101)
        刘君(中国科学院天津工业生物技术研究所 天津 300308)
        付钰(中国科学院微生物研究所 北京 100101)
        王钦宏(中国科学院天津工业生物技术研究所 天津 300308)
        李寅(中国科学院天津工业生物技术研究所 天津 300308;中国科学院微生物研究所 北京 100101)

         合成生物;生物安全;合成生物学

        synthetic organism;biosecurity;synthetic biology

        合成生物学基于生物、化学、物理、计算、工程等多学科交叉,对生物体以工程化的方式重新设计甚至是从头合成,将克服自然进化的局限,创造超越自然生命能力的合成生物,不仅对探索生命活动基本规律具有重要科学意义,也在工农业生产、环境保护、健康保健等领域具有巨大应用前景。随着合成生物技术发展的日新月异,合成生物的应用范围日益广泛,如何保障合成生物的生物安全性成为一个极其重要并且亟待解决的关键问题。合成生物学研究中大量涉及来自于病毒、致病性细菌和真菌的强毒力基因元器件,且被设计和使用的毒性基因元件和调控元件的数目也从少数几个跃升为几十个、上百个,乃至整个基因组的重新设计和编辑改造。如果缺乏有效管控或被恶意谬用,这些人工合成生物体可能会对生态环境平衡、公共卫生安全乃至国家国防安全造成威胁。因此,在人工设计和改造生物体的过程中,必须建立系统的防范和监控体系,设计有效的方法和技术来阻止人工生命体在野外环境下的复制和增殖、遗传信息的漂移以及阻断其进化出新的环境适应性,做到完全的人工改造生物隔离,达到真正的人工可控生命目标,确保其生物安全性。文章综述了合成生物学的研究进展和合成生物潜在的生物安全性威胁,以及合成生物的生物安全性防控设计策略,并对相关安全政策规章的制定给出了建议。

        Synthetic biology is an emerging field of biological research that combines science and engineering to study the mechanism of life and for a variety of technological applications, which could enable scientists to design and construct increasingly complex genetic devices and circuits, to synthesize and assembly bacterial genomes, and to develop artificially modified biological systems to produce renewable chemicals, biofuels, pharmaceuticals, health care products and new tools for environment protection. With the rapid development of synthetic biology, an important and urgent problem is raised: how do we ensure the biosecurity of synthetic organism? In the synthetic organism related research, such as synthetic biology and the generation of genetically-modified organism, many high toxic biological parts from virus, pathogenic bacteria and fungi have been exploited. The numbers of toxic genes and regulating genes used in the research has risen to hundreds, and to even redesigning the whole genome. A lack of necessary oversight or malicious utilization, these synthetic organism can cause severe risks including irreversible effects on ecosystems, hazards to public health, and threats to the national security. Accordingly, it is necessary to design suitable strategies to achieve a high level biocontainment for engineered organism, which can prevent the non-intended proliferation in the natural environment, horizontal gene transfer, ability to evolve and adapt, so as to reach the final aim of “Artificial life”. Here, we will review the potential risks of synthetic organism and the strategies to make “artificial life”. Finally, some suggestions for enacting the norms of biosafety will be addressed. And proper regulations should be developed to support the innovation and related application transformation while protecting the public from potential harms.