BioCoder #9

Chapter 7. Putting the “Tech” in Biotech

Edward Perello

We were promised better software tools. They would assist the rational engineering of biological systems. While there has been great progress, there remains tremendous scope for us to do better. The tech community (by which I mean those involved in software development) has grown rapidly and changed the world in just a few short decades. If the attention of that community can be directed and nurtured toward building new software tools for synthetic biologists, then we are likely to see similarlyrapid progress in the development of the tools our field requires. Unfortunately, the tech community does not “speak biology”—few are even aware of the developments happening in biotech. If we are to build the biocoding community to its fullest potential, then we must engage “tech” directly, and involve as many traditional software developers as possible. I propose a method to add more strings to the bow of synbio by directly engaging the tech community, training them in biology, and getting them to solve real problems that biologists face.

The State of Biology Software Today

The UK’s Synthetic Biology Leadership Council projected that by 2015 our field would be benefiting from a host of academic labs and companies developing and releasing tools to facilitate our work (Figure 7-1). In theory, the software tools these groups built would bring bioCAD and bioCAM technologies to the forefront of all biological engineering, and, in turn, ...