麻豆传媒

鈥淲ill it ever be culturally acceptable to design in messy spaces like the gut?鈥� (Image: Harry Borden/Contour by Getty Images)

As a designer, what first appealed to you about synthetic biology?
In 2008, I heard scientists talking about engineering standard DNA components called BioBricks. These could be added to a bacterium to perform specific functions, the same way you add components to a circuit board. It sparked my interest in the big questions of designing living things: what will we design, how will we judge good design and what does it mean to design living things?

Synthetic biology is an area in which design itself hasn鈥檛 yet been defined. There are scientists and engineers who say they鈥檙e designing. But is what they鈥檙e doing design or engineering? I think design can be more critical: it can help define a vision, and challenge and question.

How does this change the role of designers?
Today we view the designer as a mediator between new technologies and customers. A company may want to make a new kettle, so they will employ a designer in a service role to make it. I鈥檓 interested in disrupting that idea. There is a tradition of architects and designers as visionaries pursuing the social good. I look back to , setting out a way of living that鈥檚 manifested through design.

How have you explored our nascent relationship with synthetic biology?
I created a project called The Synthetic Kingdom, which was an . Part of it was redesigning the tree of life 鈥� I was questioning whether genetically engineered 鈥渢hings鈥� would still fit in with the taxonomy of life as we understand it. My solution was to add a new kingdom, called synthetica, next to archaea, bacteria and eukarya.

I also designed fictional, biology-based objects to explore how they might be received. One idea was cups made out of keratin, a protein found in nails and hair. I was exploring how our relationship to such everyday goods might change if we re-engineered them out of material found in our own bodies.

What other designs have you produced that involve the human body?
I鈥檝e joined in with the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) a few times, in which students design organisms using BioBricks. The University of Cambridge team I worked with designed bacteria that produced coloured pigments, which theoretically could be used to signal different levels of, say, pollutants 鈥� they called it E. chromi.

Speculative designer James King and I pushed it one step further, and came up with . It was based on a yoghurt containing E. chromi that would detect diseases or toxins in your gut and produce a coloured pigment in response, so your poo would change colour if you had specific health problems. We made a , which were actually made of plastic. We were essentially asking: will it ever be culturally acceptable to design in messy spaces like the gut?

You have a track record of involvement with thought-provoking, if unsettling, products鈥�
I think the crowd pleaser is , the human-body cheese created by synthetic biologist and , an artist who works with smells. They met as part of a research project I was involved with between scientists, artists and designers called . They immediately started talking about bacteria on the body.

A prevailing feeling is that bacteria in cheese are good, but bacteria on the body are bad. Yet the kind that make your feet smell of cheese are actually very close relatives of bacteria in cheese. So the way we think about these organisms is tempered by context and culture.

I had my armpit swabbed, and then the bacteria they took from me, and others, were made into cheese. We then ran a seminar at the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and passed the cheese around 鈥� we had 鈥淒aisy鈥檚 armpit鈥�, 鈥淧hilosopher鈥檚 toe鈥� and various others.

鈥淚 had cheese made using the bacteria swabbed from my armpit鈥�

What did people think of the cheeses made with bodily bacteria?
The reactions were extraordinary: 鈥淚t鈥檚 disgusting, it鈥檚 wrong!鈥� This wasn鈥檛 strictly synthetic biology, but it illustrates how the metaphors that permeate biological manipulation 鈥� of machinery, engineering and circuits 鈥� are a long way from the messy, material reality of it.

We鈥檙e being promised this future that鈥檚 powered by engineered bacteria, but we also have a real cultural problem with it.

You鈥檝e also explored the tension between conservationists and synthetic biologists. Tell me about that.

These two groups are working in very different directions: conservationists try to preserve existing biodiversity, while synthetic biologists try to invent new biodiversity, purportedly of benefit to humans. I produced a work about this conflict of ambitions called . It explored a future where nature had been 鈥渟aved鈥� by synthetic biology. The project imagines four biological machines 鈥� patented organisms 鈥� that are released into the wild to support endangered organisms or prop up failing ecosystems. One is a mobile bioremediation unit, which looks like a slug and produces very alkaline slime. It is programmed to seek out and treat soil that has been ruined by acid rain.

How was this project received?
Designers liked it, but synthetic biologists said I was presenting a utopian future and that I鈥檇 disappoint the public because synthetic biology won鈥檛 be able to save nature. But in fact my view is dystopian: in effect, nature as we know it is destroyed in its saving, becoming completely infected with synthetic biology.

In reality, what do you feel about the direction that synthetic biology is taking?
It鈥檚 complicated. One original big ambition was to make biofuels. You grow sugar and feed it to your vat of synthetic organisms and they make fuel for you. But what鈥檚 happening is that it鈥檚 more profitable to make a litre of vanilla flavour than a litre of biofuel. So increasingly it鈥檚 being used to make specialty chemicals.

Is that necessarily a bad thing?
It all depends on your perspective. Vanilla, for example, is traditionally grown in Madagascar, in forests by local farmers who help preserve biodiversity by growing it among other trees. Compare that with vanilla that鈥檚 fed with sugar and grown in a vat. Chemically it鈥檚 identical, but at what level do we get to choose what we consume and how it鈥檚 made? How do we weigh up the benefits of such complex systems?

So you鈥檙e saying synthetic biology is a double-edged sword?
Yes, I think elements of synthetic biology could lead to new ways of doing things that could be better for the environment, say, or our health. But I think there are issues about the level of control we could ever achieve.

I also find synthetic biology within the human body troubling. We can see the potential 鈥� we might one day use it to alleviate Alzheimer鈥檚 or Parkinson鈥檚 鈥� but we could also open the door to unintended consequences. Synthetic neurobiology is perhaps the most challenging. Some researchers are creating engineered human cells that could manipulate the way we feel. That opens up a very big can of worms.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淪ynthetic biology needs a grand vision鈥�