Designing Life

For billions of years, life on Earth has evolved through natural selection. In the past two decades, biology has undergone a profound shift: advances in DNA synthesis, genome editing and systems biology now allow scientists not only to read the genetic code of life, but also to design and rewrite it. Synthetic biology applies engineering principles to living systems, so that cells can be programmed to produce medicines, sustainable materials and new technologies. From microbes that brew beer to cells that manufacture life-saving drugs, this talk explores how biology is moving from a science of discovery to a science of design.

Dr. Anu Raghunathan is a Chief Scientist at CSIR–National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, where she leads research at the intersection of systems biology, synthetic biology and metabolic engineering, with applications from antibiotic resistance and cancer metabolism to engineered microbes. She previously worked at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Her TEDxPune talk, “The Code of Life”, has over 200,000 views.