The second decade of synthetic biology: 2010-2020

Abstract

Synthetic biology is among the most hyped research topics this century, and in 2010 it entered its teenage years. But rather than these being a problematic time, we’ve seen synthetic biology blossom and deliver many new technologies and landmark achievements.

Fig. 1. Landmark research achievements of synthetic biology from 2010 to 2020.

A timeline is shown for the decade with brief summaries of some of the key research milestones published for each year.

Fig. 2. New enabling technologies and ways of working that have accelerated the design-build-test-learn cycle of synthetic biology in the last decade.

Diagram shows the engineering cycle used in synthetic biology (centre) with cartoons illustrating some of the key technologies and ways of working that now help accelerate each phase of the cycle.