SYNTHESIS Issue 01

SYNTHESIS Unceded Gadigal Land | Issue 01 | 2022

SYNBIO • DESIGN • EDUCATION • FUTURING

Acknowledgement of Country

We would like to acknowledge the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, and the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) stands. Specifically, we would like to acknowledge them as the first scientists and biodesigners of this land, who have practiced innovation for over 60,000 years.

We would especially like to thank Kuku-Yalandji woman, Henrietta Baird, whose guidance and generous sharing of knowledge offered us new perspectives and ways of looking at our work.

We pay our respects to the Eora Elders and acknowledge them as keepers of knowledge accumulated through an ancestral connection to Country. This knowledge offers us all a vision and path forward as we work collectively to create a more just and sustainable future together.

We recognise the Indigenous people of Australia as the first people of this continent and understand that the history and knowledge developed over many thousands of years by Indigenous Australian people was severely disrupted at the time of early colonial settlements.

The past 200 years have left many Indigenous people at a crossroads with poor health, education, and employment prospects. We further acknowledge that there is still a far way to go before we see the rich knowledge embedded within Indigenous custodianship being used to inform all members of Australia’s future generations.

We stand in solidarity with First Nations leaders in their struggle for the national recognition of their sovereignty and right to self-determination.

As Australian scientists and designers, we denounce any instances in the past, present or future, where people steal cultural knowledge, patent it, and make money from it.

Image credit: Alessia Francischellio via Unsplash.

We want to use this Acknowledgement of Country to make the following pledge: 1. We will not undertake collaborations with Indigenous practitioners without first taking steps towards educating ourselves about white saviourism and biotechnological exploitation of Indigenous people, knowledge, or land.1 2. We will always ask ourselves: Are we engaging in genuine two-way knowledge sharing? Are we willing to change our perspectives, or are we just engaging to gain something from the community?

3. We will always ask ourselves: Have we inappropriately used language that suggests we aim to empower Indigenous communities without first consulting the community?

4. Where any research aims to ‘serve’ an Indigenous Australian community, we will ask ourselves: Did the community ask for this?1 5. We will not ask Indigenous practitioners to educate us or deliver work for us without adequate financial compensation.2, 3 6. We will not use ‘good intentions’ as a defence if we are called out. Instead, we will take on the criticism and learn to do better in the future.

7. We will be open to uncomfortable conversations as we continue to work in the space of synthetic biology on unceded, Aboriginal land.

Photograph (left): Crowd protesting in solidarity with Americans and the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as demonstrating against issues with police brutality and institutional racism, racism in Australia, and Aboriginal deaths in custody (Sydney, 2020).

Photograph (right): First Nations Peoples in Australia continue to struggle for equity and land rights. The phrase “Always was always will be Aboriginal land” is a prolific political slogan often chanted at Aboriginal rights rallies across the country.

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Foreword Written by Distinguished Professor Ian Paulsen Director, ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology

SYNTHESIS is the serendipitous product of unexpected twists and turns, a genuine willingness to step out of comfort zones, loads of hard work, and many cycles of iteration. What began as a student team assembled to represent the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in the 2021 Australasian Synbio Challenge (ASC), somehow transformed into an unprecedented national first for the Australian synthetic biology (synbio) community: a homegrown interdisciplinary magazine energetically focused on bringing together the fields of synbio and design…

How did this all happen?

Early in 2021, Andrew Care, a researcher merging synbio with nanomedicine in the School of Life Sciences, launched the ASC program for the first time at UTS. He recruited a group of passionate science students ranging from undergraduates to Masters students who were keen to drive a synbio lab project. Familiar to each other within Sydney’s synbio community (and, of course, Twitter), Andrew met with Jestin George, coordinator of the Biodesign program in the UTS Design Faculty.

Joining forces, they decided to incorporate design students and practices into the existing UTS ASC team to explore this synbio project through interdisciplinary collaboration. Here, the scientists would carry out experiments in the lab and the designers would lead the exploration of the sociotechnical context of this work with them.

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All was going according to plan when the first unexpected twist struck: COVID lockdowns.

Beginning almost the exact same day that the scientists were meant to enter the lab for the first time, the Sydney lockdown put the UTS ASC team into a state of suspension, leaving them unsure of how to progress. Months passed, and while it became clear the team would not be getting into the lab at all, they had noticed increasing biodesign-driven conversations percolating within the group. And so, the team picked themselves up, turned their project around, and conceptualised SYNTHESIS. A collaborative, inclusive, and creative magazine, SYNTHESIS comprises Australian grown synbio content and perspectives spanning research and industry, Indigenous culture and environmental impact, and contemporary design.

A second unexpected twist came at the end of the team’s journey: having generated a buzz of excitement at the 2021 ASC Final Showcase, SYNTHESIS was suddenly a highly anticipated publication, both locally and abroad. Given this overwhelmingly positive reception, the team decided their creation should not remain a small one-off student project, but instead, they decided to take SYNTHESIS to the next level.

And so, editors Jestin and Andrew have not only ensured the completion of SYNTHESIS’ first issue but have further outlined its ongoing mission for future production (see next page).

On behalf of the CoESB, we are excited and proud to sponsor the inaugural issue of SYNTHESIS. As an accessible magazine, SYNTHESIS synergises with the CoESB’s vision of championing and connecting Australian synbio research and industry with the rest of the world; and also its mission to educate the public and inspire the next-generation of synthetic biologists!

Ian Paulsen

Welcome to SYNTHESIS Manifesto We aim to help diversify the Australian synthetic biology community and contribute to seeding a more transparent and humble culture right from the onset: at the student level.

We aim to inspire a deeper and more genuine exploration of the sociotechnical dimensions of Australian biotechnological science.

SYNTHESIS will strive to provide an avenue to connect Australian scientists and designers to enable more interdisciplinary innovation.

SYNTHESIS is a self-published, not-for-profit magazine that will always be free and accessible to all Australians electronically.

SYNTHESIS will champion broader community participation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) to improve STEM literacy outside of scientific communities.

Future issues As an annual publication, all future issues of SYNTHESIS will contain theme-focused content on the topic of synthetic biology and design (synbio-design). Synbio-design is rooted in the concept of ‘nature as technology’ and as such, SYNTHESIS will continuously champion engagement with Indigenous Australians, who have used nature as technology for thousands of years without contributing to climate breakdown or deepening inequality.

If you might be interested in contributing to a future issue of SYNTHESIS, watch this space. We will be putting out an open call for contributors and sponsors later in the year.

synthesis.aus synthesis.aus@gmail.com

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A message from the editors

Budyeri kamaru (pronounced Bood-juri Kah-mu-roo) This is “Hello” in Gadigal vernacular, the language of the traditional custodians of the land on which the Sydney CBD is built. Thank you, Kuku-Yalandji woman, Henrietta Baird, for teaching us this greeting!

SYNTHESIS is Australia’s first synbio-design magazine, a tapestry of words and images stitched together to uncover common—and uncommon—ground for scientists and designers interested in synthetic biology (synbio) in this place.

For the scientifically curious, our Australasian Synbio Challenge (ASC) team from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) outline their original synbio lab project (page 10). Herein, they explain their plans to introduce miniature protein compartments into cyanobacteria to enhance their capacity to biosynthesise industriallyrelevant compounds, known as terpenes.

For anyone who considers themselves imaginative yet pragmatic, why not sink your teeth into one student’s firsthand (and somewhat brutal) account of what it was like to explore design futuring as a scientist (page 18). This includes key insights from design researcher, Thomas Lee, and also draws upon work by architect and author of “Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism”, Julia Watson.

For those interested in Australia’s growing synbio industry, we have an exclusive interview with one of the nation’s first synbio start-ups, and a proud sponsor of our ASC team, Bondi Bio (page 30).

Likewise, you can learn about Make.This.Universe (M.T.U), a small D.I.Y cosmetics company who are actively trying to shift the popular narrative of “lab equals bad,” which is rife within the natural beauty sector (page 63).

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For the sociotechnically intrigued, you can read the musings of two students as they reflect on an interactive workshop with Kuku-Yalandji woman, multidisciplinary artist and plant knowledge holder, Henrietta Baird (page 44). This might even inspire some scientists to break the mould when writing ethical and social dimension statements about their research (page 68).

For people whose work aims to deliver a more sustainable future, we have an exposé revealing the growing presence of greenwashed marketing strategies (page 56). This is unpacked through conversations with Manan Pahwa, an industrial designer in India; Jessye Grundlingh, M.T.U owner and industrial designer in Canada; Nahum Mclean, a fashion design PhD researcher in Australia; and Leila Wallisser, a materials designer in Germany.

Throughout the magazine, you will have the chance to feast your eyes upon the visual portrayals of various complex ideas found within synbio. These include a short design fiction visualised as a storyboard (page 28); a sharing of the secret questions we might harbour because of the competitive, overly promissory culture of science (page 17); and a fun how-to guide for synbio-design collaborations, as informed by the students’ ASC experience herein (page 72).

No matter where you find yourself on the vast and diverse landscape that is synbio, we are all united by our belief in the incredible power of biology and its boundless potential for technological development. And yet, many of us have a poor understanding of the human:non-human binary1,2, or how nature

Jestin George, PhD

is used as technologies by non-Western Indigenous peoples across the world3-6, or even the intricate connection between equity and the climate crisis7-10, a challenge many of us synthetic biologists are working to address. We also tend to not collaborate with the designers whose industries we try to disrupt, or work alongside experts to contextualise the social relevance of our research11, work that aims to benefit society. It is therefore ironic that we, as synthetic biologists, seem to have a neverending ability to comprehend and harness the enormous complexity of natural biology (and the technological wonders of synbio), but so little capacity to contemplate the complex society in which our re-engineered biology will persist.

With that said, SYNTHESIS is not about shaming scientists or proposing that all synthetic biologists must become sociotechnical specialists. On the contrary, SYNTHESIS aims to be a celebration of transparent and humble collaboration between synbio and design, and a way to communicate about all thing’s synbio–not just the science and technology. This magazine is an exciting leap into this realm through the lens of the student experience, and in the process, makes a compelling case for training up more synbiodesigners...

We need SYNTHESIS.

Jestin and Andrew

Jestin is an interdisciplinary researcher and self-taught artist working between synthetic biology and biodesign. She has lectured and taught Biodesign and Design Futuring at universities across Australia, USA, and Saudi Arabia since 2019 and was a judge for the international Biodesign Challenge in 2021. Jestin is currently the inaugural designer-in-residence for the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology (CoESB). While she has no tertiary design qualifications, she was taught and mentored by South African artist and designer, Julia Rosa Clark, who had a profound and long-lasting impact on Jestin’s capabilities in communication design. She holds a PhD for her work on metabolic engineering strategies in diatoms from UTS. More broadly, she continues to advocate for artists and designers within the Australian synthetic biology ecosystem and frequently collaborates with creative practitioners including dramaturgs, filmmakers, architects, anthropologists, and choreographers. @jestinARgeorge

Andrew Care, PhD Andrew is a Chancellor’s Research Fellow in the School of Life Sciences at UTS. His research aims to innovate new biomedical technologies by creatively blending synbio with nanomedicine. This work includes taking naturally-occurring protein nanoparticles and engineering them into platforms for drug delivery, immunotherapy, and vaccine development. Andrew is also passionate about providing students with an immersive experience that connects teaching, learning, and research practices. In pursuit of this, he established and continues to coordinate UTS’ ASC team, which offers students the opportunity to collaboratively engage in synbio research and biodesign. An active member in the Australian synbio community, Andrew contributes to the CoESB as an Associate Investigator and serves on the Sydney-node committee for the Synthetic Biology Australasia (SBA) society. @Dr_Andrew_Care

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Contents

Are designers and scientists more similar than we realise?

Enhancing nature as a technology: Can we take inspiration from one part of nature and put it someplace else?

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10-17

Written by Henrico Adrian, Caitlin Sives and Christian White

How does imagining possible futures help progress science?

18-29

Written by Christian White

Making waves at the edge of synthetic biology

30-41

Written by Henrico Adrian

Scents of this land: Learnings from lia a rt s Au 5siotb t s r hnc e ologiss t Written by Lucy Slip and Emily Venga

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44-53

Questioning our perceptions of sustainability

56-67

Written by Henrico Adrian and Emily Venga

Social dimensions need active strategies

68-71

Written by Jestin George

A guide to successful collaboration

72-73

Written by Lucy Slip and Christian White

Glossary

76-77

Bibliography

78-79

A collection of resources cited throughout the magazine

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Context: The Synthetic Biology Australasia (SBA) society represents a broad community of people working in or close to synthetic biology (synbio). In recent years, members of the society have established cityspecific nodes for local meetups and events. On 9 October 2020, the Perth node held an event at which Professor Robert Sparrow (Monash University) gave a talk entitled, “How design makes a difference: Ethics, power and the nature/ culture divide.”

The words here represent a snippet from Rob’s talk; words which resonated with our multidisciplinary team and help justify the value of synbio-design collaborations like ours here.

Interestingly, although Rob never uses the word ‘scientist’ explicitly, his talk was directed toward a scientific audience. His use of the word ‘designer’ is intended to include both scientists and designers, revealing the ways these two communities—who are so different in their practices and disciplinary conventions—are in fact intricately connected.

Are designers and scientists more similar than we realise?

When you are dealing with the artificial, or the cultural, or the engineered, you are dealing with human agency… and you are dealing with the power of other people. Things that are designed have designers. Here are three ways that the introduction of a designer into our environment matters: 1. The exercise of power: things that used to be natural—and didn’t reflect the agency of other people—were constraints on our will. For example, we might struggle against nature or rail against it, but it didn’t represent the power of someone else over us. When something becomes engineered, we are confronted with the possibility that there is an exercise of power.

2. Questions of responsibility: someone becomes responsible for the artificial, the cultural, the engineered, but they are not responsible for the natural... What used to be natural disasters are now clearly political and cultural disasters. We are becoming more and more responsible for what used to be deemed “acts of God”.

3. Blame: when we introduce design, we introduce questions of power, responsibility, and blame.

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As more and more of our environment becomes designed, who gets to be the designers?

What choice do people have?

Who is affected by this power?

What does it say about us that we design things in a certain way?

When someone is wielding power over your life, did you get a say in that matter?

New artifacts will shape social relations. Technologies are not neutral, they have affordances. They have politics built into them. Just by introducing that new technology, you start to shape people’s behaviours. We leave traces of our agency in the new artifact; in the things we design.

When we reflect on the questions above, we can get a clearer sense of the argument for a more democratic science. Once we understand the nature of what’s going on when people design things, the idea that people might demand a say becomes much more natural.

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Enhancing nature as a technology: Can we take inspiration from one part of nature and put it someplace else?

Written by Henrico Adrian, Caitlin Sives and Christian White

The bioeconomy and looking to nature Across the globe and in almost every economic sector, there is a pressing need and desire to modify industries to be more sustainable. The United Nations predict that human populations will reach 9.8 billion in 2050, which will put significant strain on the planet’s already dwindling resources1.

Unfortunately, the industrial and agricultural revolutions that provided a multitude of commodities relied on unsustainable resources and practices. For instance, petrochemical feedstock and domesticated crops and animals, require high excesses of resources and result in high carbon dioxide emissions. Consequently, many areas of research are investigating the feasibility of moving towards a bioeconomy; a system which is expected to deliver sustainable alternatives as well as economic growth2. Such alternatives should arise from renewable biobased resources and/or energy streams which minimise waste, or better yet, incorporate waste into other desirable products or services.

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The ancient and invisible manufacturing factories all around us A particularly versatile and exciting aspect of the bioeconomy are microbes. Although invisible to the naked eye, these organisms make up 15% of Earth’s biomass and approximately 80% of its total biodiversity. Some species of microbes— including fungi, bacteria, and microalgae—can be grown faster and require less water, land space, and nutrients than agricultural crops and animals. Microbes have been used for centuries for fermentation of food and beverages, but increasing knowledge in the life sciences has enabled more advanced uses of microbes for alternative, more sustainable manufacturing.

Although microbes have incredible capabilities to deliver all sorts of processes and products, the reality is that they can almost never do this on a large scale, at least not without some coaxing…

Significant technological advances over the last 50 years—namely regarding machine learning, data science and information technology, robotics and automation, and genetic engineering—have allowed humans to do just that, by colliding and creating a field of emerging technology called synthetic biology (synbio)3.

Designer microbes All around us, upon us, within us, and underneath us, nature is doing some pretty gnarly stuff. Think about those dogs who can be trained to ‘sniff out cancer’, the bacteria living inside the pores on your face using the oils on your skin as food, the cells in your pancreas making insulin to help your body manage sugar spikes, the bacteria living in the soil which give plants the ability to take-up nitrogen from their roots4-7.

All these funky processes are essentially enzymedriven reactions (substrate + enzyme = product).

And if an enzyme-driven reaction can be found in nature, then it can be “copied & pasted” into a microorganism, turning it into a bioengineered designer microbe, if you will.

That’s not to say that designer microbes will necessarily play ball and do what you’ve asked, but some synbio companies have managed to tinker with microbial biology in a way that has led to successful human:microbe collaborations.

For example, Bolt Threads “copied” genes encoding enzymatic reactions that make spider silk and “pasted” them into baker’s yeast, resulting in a designer yeast able to make a soft yet durable textile more sustainably than conventional cotton farming practices8. Similarly, Amyris Inc. “copy & pasted” genes encoding reactions into bacteria to enhance their natural ability to produce farnesene as a commercially viable bio-based jet fuel9. London based designer, Natsai Audrey Chieza, spent many years developing new ways of dyeing textiles in collaboration with the naturally occurring and pigment-producing microbe, Streptomyces

coelicolor. In 2018, she was awarded a creative residency at Ginkgo Bioworks in which she was exploring how she might harness synthetic biology to address issues of scaling-up this new dyeing practice10.

These new ways of working with bioengineered living microscopic organisms—ways that are often preferential to conventional methods of agriculture or destructive extraction processes— might force us to reflect and ask ourselves some deep questions. Like, how do we perceive what ‘natural’ even means? And how can we ascribe value and trust to things we find in (or engineer into) nature? What does it mean to turn nature into technology, something Indigenous cultures across the world have done for thousands of years, but in very different ways?

Taking strategies from nature and applying them to biotechnologies Whatever product you might want to make in a microbe—be that a rose fragrance for cosmetics, or a natural dye to colour fabrics, or spider silk to weave new textiles—you will need to think about supply chain networks. But not the kind that involve trucks and storage facilities and depots; no, we are talking about biochemistry. Those funky processes happening all the time, which are invisible to us, but make us and the natural world around us possible. Synbio is largely about looking at those microscopic supply chain networks, the ones occurring within microbes, and asking, “How can we improve or engineer them to do x, y, or z, for us or with us?”.

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Designer microbes and the companies who make them Ginkgo Bioworks, the synbio company who commonly refer to themselves as “the organism company”, produce all sorts of natural products using genetically engineered yeast and in 2019 were valued at USD 4 billion11. MicroByre, another synbio company, do things a little differently: instead of engineering the same handful of microbes that are widely used by industry (often with good reason), they prefer to look out into the world and target their efforts at domesticating bacteria that have never been used by industry before12.

As a team of curious students representing the University of Technology Sydney in the 2021 Australasian Synbio Challenge (ASC), our interests lay somewhere in between these two approaches. We were keen on working with Bondi Bio, a local Australian synbio startup who

make compounds called ‘terpenes’ (which can be used as flavours, fragrances, or even cleaning products) in a microbe we think is pretty exciting: cyanobacteria.

Cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae) are considered one of the oldest, biggest, and most vital groups of bacteria living on earth13.

Although they have been tested for biotech purposes before, they are very new to the industry space when compared to conventionally used microorganisms (usually, E. coli and baker’s yeast).

Cyanobacteria are aquatic and can naturally be found living in both fresh and marine water. And, unlike bacteria or yeasts, they are photosynthetic, meaning they make their own food by taking sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide, and turning it into energy and oxygen. As a result, photosynthetic cyanobacteria naturally found in oceans produce around 10% of our planet’s oxygen.

Image credit: Mapbox A cyanobacterial bloom occurring in the ocean the off the coast of Estonia. Some blooms can be seen from space as blue-green swirls in the oceans. Factors causing these, often toxic, cyanobacterial blooms include low winds, high temperatures, and runoff from agriculture.

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It’s a supply chain problem Synthetic biologists are keen on producing terpene compounds because they are incredibly diverse molecules that are found ubiquitously throughout nature and have far-reaching commercial uses and applications, including but not limited to fragrances, flavours, cleaning products, bio-based jet fuel (yep, farnesene is a type of terpene), medicines... all sorts.

In order to coax cyanobacteria into biomanufacturing terpene compounds for us, we have to look really closely at their supply chain networks and then recalibrate them so that they’re able to cope with making high amounts of chemicals they did not naturally

evolve to make. When it comes to producing terpenes in cyanobacteria, the internal supply network that we need to recalibrate is the methylerythritol phosphate (MEP) pathway13,14.

Comprised of seven reaction steps, the pathway uses pyruvate (produced by the breakdown of sugars) and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate (GAP, produced via photosynthesis) to generate isopentenyl pyrophosphate (IPP) and dimethylallyl pyrophosphate (DMAPP) - the universal precursors of terpenes. By tinkering with a cyanobacterium’s MEP pathway, we could, in theory, encourage these little critters to overproduce our desired terpene compound. For this very reason, synthetic biologists are keenly focused on understanding, manipulating, and enhancing this all-important enzymatic pathway.

This sketch shows the “substrate + enzyme = product” process of the MEP pathway. Because the enzyme pathway is made up enzymes (green) performing sequential reactions, a product from one reaction becomes a substrate for the next... we call this an intermediate (blue).

Some enzymes, intermediates, and products can suppress the efficiency of the pathway, a process known as a negative feedback loop (yellow).

The MEP pathway is responsible for making the building blocks for all terpenes in cyanobacteria.

Int: intermediate Enz: Enzyme

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What if…

Three barriers in the MEP pathway are known to interfere with cyanobacteria’s ability to efficiently make terpene compounds14. First is the way the organism tightly regulates things right at the start of the pathway. We need to make our little friends more flexible and therefore more willing to channel the relevant metabolites towards the pathway we want it to. Second are pesky negative feedback loops, where intermediate metabolites produced by enzymes later in the pathway annoyingly supress enzymes earlier in the pathway. And finally, how efficient an enzyme is, commonly referred to as ‘enzyme kinetics’, can hugely influence how effective our designer microbe will be.

Our ASC team have an exciting idea to try and address these bottlenecks: What if we could take one trick used in nature and apply it in another context to solve our so-called supply chain problem?

What is this trick you speak of?

In nature, there is a process called ‘compartmentalisation’ which refers to the physical separation and organisation of the complex metabolic reactions that occur inside living cells.

Compartmentalisation in bacteria often involves ‘protein compartments’ which self-assemble from protein building blocks into sphere-like structures that contain enzymes. This natural design allows protein compartments to protect and stabilize enzymes while also enhancing the critical reactions they perform. One example of protein compartments at work, are carboxysomes in

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Diagram: Visualisation of an encapsulin protein compartment (PDB 7KQ5) packaging a problematic enzyme from the MEP pathway. The bioengineered compartment is integrated into cyanobacteria where it enhances the conversion of substrates to terpenes.

cyanobacteria15. These compartments package the two enzymes responsible for processing carbon during photosynthesis, carbonic anhydrase and RuBisCO (pronounced roo-bis-co). Impressively, carboxysomes enable their cyanobacterial hosts to adsorb 20-30% of the planet’s carbon - including that nasty excess carbon produced by humans!

Armed with this information, we hypothesised that compartmentalising enzymes in the MEP pathway would overcome bottlenecks that lower cyanobacteria’s terpene output.

To test our hypothesis, we looked towards a class of protein compartments known as encapsulins.

Like carboxysomes—only smaller and simpler— encapsulins are found inside some bacteria, where they encapsulate enzymes and help them to carry out various important reactions naturally16-17.

Encapsulins are highly adaptable and can be easily reengineered using synbio tools. This includes swapping out their native enzymes for brand new ones18. Using this approach, we designed experiments that would take problematic enzymes from the MEP pathway and place them (and their reactions) into encapsulin compartments. We would genetically integrate these new encapsulin systems into cyanobacteria and assess their capacity to overcome existing bottlenecks and enhance terpene production. Despite the potential of this idea, many scientific questions and foreseeable hurdles remain (see more on page 16).

Synbio beyond the technical developments While COVID lockdowns may have ultimately prevented our ASC team from testing our hypotheses in the lab, we are hopeful that future teams will explore our exciting idea and ultimately generate large-scale terpene producing cyanobacterial biofactories!

But, like so much of synbio research, we are only investigating a very small niche hypothesis which could have much broader ramifications.

This is also why thinking about the sociotechnical context of our work was so difficult… And why, even though we didn’t get into the lab at all, we still had a heap of synbio-related content to work on through over the year’s project. Because, ultimately, we are only at the stage of trying to make a technology more feasible. We hadn’t even begun to think about its roll-out in the real world.

But after a year of exploring this project through non-technical lenses, we now wonder: How might we use synthetic biology and bioengineered organisms in ways beyond simply producing our existing commodities in new ways? What will all this cool tech be able to accomplish within a consumerist, capitalist culture? How might emerging technologies like synthetic biology come together with new (and old) cultural practices to make real change? And what might that look like?

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3D visualisation of a tiny encapsulin protein compartment (PDB 7KQ5) isolated from a bacterial species.

Image generated in ChimeraX.

we

What if created

a culture of

self-critique

& real

transparency?

Does packaging non-native enzymes inside protein compartments genuinely enhance their activity?

Is it truly efficient to use protein compartments to enhance bioproduction instead of proven metabolic engineering strategies?

Will we ever gain the ability to precisely control the packaging of an enzyme, or multiple enzymes, within protein compartments?

Will increasing the efficiency of our microbes actually help Australia become more s‘ ustainable’?

How will we quantifiably measure this?

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How does imagining possible futures help progress science?

Written by Christian White

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What on earth is design futuring?

Welcome to my experience as a science student hesitantly exploring the very foreign discipline of design futuring. In this article, I share my trepidations, uncover my prejudices, and detail my changing perspective towards design approaches. I will walk you through what design futuring is, how it relates to the world around us, some current projects involving futuring, and its potential uses within the global synthetic biology (synbio) community.

In my pursuit to better understand biodesign and design futuring practices, I first set out to interview our Australasian Synbio Challenge (ASC) team’s biodesign and futuring supervisor Jestin George, and design researcher, Tom Lee. Tom coordinates the design futuring subject in the UTS Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building (UTS: DAB), where Jestin also coordinates the fastgrowing Biodesign studio.

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Welcome to the future(ing)

“The possibilities for technologies need to be shaped in an imaginary space for people to invest in them... Be that in money, intellectual energy, or experimentation and prototyping. It needs to be made tangible somehow…Thinking about the future in relation to present and past.”

– Tom Lee

Design Researcher

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Like synbio, design futuring is hard to define precisely or neatly. In its simplest form, it involves thinking about a ‘not yet’. Jestin described how it’s difficult for proponents of emerging technologies to speak about the future value of their work because the future is unknown. “As scientists, we don’t want to tether ourselves to predictions or portrayals of the future which we cannot guarantee. But that means that we end up talking about our work in a very abstract, intangible way,” Jestin said. “Design futuring is not about predicting the future… It’s about exploring a plethora of possibilities of our emerging technologies.

This helps us to visualise ways our work might positively impact society—and gives us the awareness to further invest resources into that— as well as understand the negative or concerning impacts, which helps us to reconsider design strategies or pipelines.”

By using design futuring, Jestin believes that we have a better shot at “delivering quicker or more meaningful impact from our big promises in science by using a wider breadth of research alongside our deep, technical know-how”. This vision was heavily advocated for by our science supervisor, Andrew Care, who openly encouraged the scientists in the ASC team to embrace biodesign practices and helped facilitate our interdisciplinary efforts.

Design futuring in the real world Design futuring has some very real applications, even outside of academia. In our interview, Tom mentioned the example of Sydney Water, a stateowned corporation providing drinking water and water services across greater Sydney (Eora and Dharug Nations). Sydney Water are currently currently employing design futuring research to visualise how water is used on an individual level to better predict household water usage patterns as a contingency for changing weather patterns.

Tom went into detail about a futuring report1 published by the Emerging Technologies Research Lab at Monash University in conjunction with Ausgrid, the largest electricity distributor on Australia’s east coast. This report developed several very specific scenarios for describing energy usage in a future that is heavily reliant on the use of digital technology: tools and systems that generate, store, and process data.

The researchers compiled and analysed 64 reports detailing how the relevant industries were portraying, envisioning, and consequently designing, for their users. One outcome of the futuring report revealed how most of the industries worked around the (incorrect) assumption that users were ‘tech-savvy, mostly English-speaking’. The futuring researchers provided a new proposal to increase ethnographic research to “…bring digital technology and energy industry visions together with householders’ own expectations for their futures...”.

These examples show that science and design futuring don’t have to be mutually exclusive, and suggest that futuring could in fact provide a greater degree of nuance and direction to synbio research, if we give it the chance.

Jumping out of the lab and hed,a tins r ot theign s ed studio For our ASC project, the initial plan for the sciencebiodesign collaboration was straightforward: the science students would build terpene-producing cyanobacteria in the lab while the design students would work tangentially to explore the social dimensions of the research (see page 10). However, COVID-19 lockdowns came back to Sydney just as the scientists, including myself, were due to get into the labs, and consequently, our project was reluctantly put on ice. Our supervisors, Andrew and Jestin, saw this as a unique opportunity to pivot the ASC project to ask: What if we explored this synbio project through an entirely sociotechnical lens?

We started collaborating by first considering the core features of our original research. Our biodesign supervisor, Jestin, called this a ‘brain dump’. “Don’t hold back and don’t worry about being perfectly accurate for now. Write down direct responses, indirect ideas or questions, link images or diagrams or papers, the more the better!” she would say. Using a virtual whiteboard space on Miro, Jestin got all of us to map out answers to a bunch of prompts and questions to help paint a picture depicting the context of our research question. These included:

What did we plan to do in the lab?

What are the ethical implications?

Who are some key stakeholders?

What problem were we trying to solve?

Who else was interested in solving this problem?

Had we considered other solutions?

What were our motivations?

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Surprisingly—or unsurprisingly, depending on who you ask—we came up with some very generic and repetitive answers, even though we spent a lot of time on this brain dump and had the designers repeatedly asking more and more questions about it. That brain dump acted as a jumping off point for our exercises in collaboration and ideation, and in small working groups, we tried to think more divergently about our project.

Some of our ideas stayed focused on the core features of our original research project, whereas others went off the rails, and started considering the implications of marketing our product, public opinion, ecological concerns, and even ethical conundrums. I found this extremely refreshing and enlightening in comparison to the rigid experimental planning traditionally employed in science. Using KJ brainstorming2 concurrently with mind mapping2, we started trying to group and cluster ideas together, and use one idea to leap into another.

This left us with a bunch of whacky ideas for the next step in our creative process. Using a method called Crazy Eights3, we each wrote down eight imagined scenarios in eight minutes, and then picked out our favourites. Again, creative freedom was encouraged. Some of the scenarios that emerged included: a future where animals and humans produce commercial terpenes; a scenario in which synthetic cyanobacteria are looked after as a pet; a future in which people have lost their sense of smell and taste; and a world where scents are used to study for a test (smells triggering memories of content or concepts).

Finally, we were instructed to add characters as part of this worldbuilding exercise. These characters had to be one thing: extreme! By describing and empathising with these extreme

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characters we were able to create a spectrum of stakeholders that were involved in a terpenedependent world. This was immediately applicable to considerations around the use and implementation of any terpene-related products, as extreme characters draw from real world views and perceptions.

I know most scientists reading this are thinking, “It’s great to exercise a bit of creativity, but I have important work to do, and I don’t have time to sit around imagining the future”. After the novelty of the futuring exercises had worn off, I, too, found myself thinking this.

Why we needed to collaborate with designers to explore possible futures Why does it matter that we came up with more subjective scenarios in the futuring exercises?

Consider the world we imagined earlier, a world without smell. While farfetched, it makes sense to consider such a possibility when developing a product or service that centres around smell. (We never imagined our worlds would centre around handheld and even wearable computers, but here we are...) Understanding the types of people who use smell as a technology or product—the brands, their markets, their customer base— matters.

Only by collaborating with designers did we start to wonder, who else uses smell in interesting ways, especially naturally derived terpenes? And in what contexts? You can read more about the types of stakeholders we often don’t consider in

Image credit: Haley Truong via Unsplash.

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other articles of this magazine: For example, the DIY cosmetics company, Make.This.Universe, who produce terpenoid-containing candles and deodorants on page 60; or Henrietta Baird, an Indigenous plant knowledge holder and artist interested in Western and Indigenous scient-ific practices around eucalyptus oil, on page 44.

During the futuring exercises, Jestin would encourage us to push our ideas to be more bizarre, with more layers of detail... And all I could think was, “Ok, but I have answered the question, right?”.

Since reflecting on that experience, I have realised a few interconnected misconceptions I had going into the process. Initially, I had associated design futuring with corporate ‘design thinking’ methodologies, something I was already familiar with through my studies, and something found pretty intuitive. This led me to presume that these creative exercises would be easy, not least because imagining the future doesn’t

require specialised skills or technical knowledge.

I also now realise that as scientists, we need to be more aware that we are innovating knowledge and products in very linear ways that have been fed by underlying influences such as colonialism and racism, and that these promote inequalities and reject diverse thinking4,5. Personally, I think this might be feeding our collective resistance to practices like design futuring.

When discussing this with Jestin and Tom, they revealed that their overarching goal in teaching their undergraduate subject, Design Futuring, is to help students unlearn the highly unoriginal and stereotyped way we all think about the future6. Jestin described how “everyone, including inexperienced design students, tends to imagine the future as being super techy, super digital, pretty dystopian or ignorantly utopian. This is because we all engage with this convention of imagining the future, which is a persistent hangover from the way people imagined the future in the 1950s: everyone in silver space suits

“ It’s about focusing on ideas that are interesting and generative to consider the use and evolution of concepts outside of their intended purpose. This is one way in which designers also experiment, whether that be technical, social, or character-based experimentation.”

– Tom Lee

Designer Researcher

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This photograph shows designer Leila Wallister’s experimentation with collagen as a potential bioplastic material. As a designer, Leila is not just thinking about the technicality of developing this material, but also, who might use it? In what future sociotechnical context? And how might she consider its development and design to influence new ways of relating to single use products?

Image credit: Leila Walliser.

with microchips in their brains and holidaying on Mars.” Tom elaborated by adding that they tend to get their students to think quite deeply about the acquisition, appropriation, and appreciation of their design or product. He added, “Likewise, we get them to think about devaluation, divestment, and disposal. It’s about focusing on ideas that are interesting and generative to consider the use and evolution of concepts outside of their intended purpose. This is one way in which designers also experiment, whether that be technical, social, or character-based experimentation.” This made more sense to me after Tom and Jestin showed me their storyboard, in which they imagine a future building off Jestin’s synbio focused PhD research, revealed on page 28.

Finally, I realised my own scepticism surrounding biodesign had arisen from the perception that design approaches are unable to generate

empirical data in the same way that conventional scientific methods do. Scientific experiments are often broken down into numbers and figures, and we have protocols for how to interpret this quantitative data. Tom believes that design futuring will be able to impact scientists in a data driven world, as well as change this data driven culture. He also believes that a measurable impact of futuring is feasible.

I know that this article might be making some feel defensive, that some of this is a little inconvenient to hear, for myself included. But I think it’s important. Because, while incorporating diverse disciplines and cohorts into science is crucial for innovation, it is equally important to properly consider and critique science in the diversity of global societies. In hindsight, this is the benefit of biodesign that Andrew had been encouraging the whole time.

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Where to from here?

As synthetic biologists, we might not realise that we already speak in future terms when we explain the reason for our research. In our team’s ASC project, that was ‘a more sustainable terpene market’ yet to exist. In another project, it might be ‘looking to provide a more efficient means of hydrogen production’ or ‘creating a world eradicated of a certain disease’. We do this to communicate the value of our research to friends, family, reviewers, and funding bodies.

Jestin and Tom call this the ‘Promises Paradox’ in their recent publication7. It’s the idea that scientists are expected to make big promises about what ‘could be’ with regard to our research, but are not equipped with tools or collaborations to imagine ‘what if’. And that’s no fault of our own: we are not trained in this way of thinking.

But clearly, we need it.

“This is what futuring is useful for,” Tom described, “highlighting barriers to problem solving, considering diverse experiences and the inevitably messy and complex world that our innovations will exist in, and making emerging technologies—and the things they might enable—tangible”. He added that, “Innovation is often considered in a futuristic and shiny way, when, more often than not, it is a motley of old

The candle is a great example of a technology that is a motley of the new and old. Originally invented from animal fat with the purpose of providing light before we had electricity, these contained, transportable, miniature fires gave off a strong, unpleasant smell. Cut to today, where candles should (by innovation centric narratives) be redundant and therefore extinct from human culture. Not only is this untrue, but ironically, candle-making has been perfected for creating hundreds of varied and desirable sensory experiences.

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Image credit: No Revisions via Unsplash.

“...why [have] we limited our view of technology based upon a decision that was made three hundred, four hundred years ago from people in a very small community in Europe at that time? Let’s reframe that and lay a new ground”9. and new ideas”. This reframing of innovation is being spoken about in a lot of different circles.

For example, Jestin also introduced us to the work of designer, Julia Watson, who details investigations of Indigenous innovations from across the globe in her recent book, Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism8. In an interview, Watson comments, “...why [have] we limited our view of technology based upon a decision that was made three hundred, four hundred years ago from people in a very small community in Europe at that time? Let’s reframe that and lay a new ground”9.

Examples from Watson’s book include the ancient innovation of Australian First Nations People’s methods of back burning to minimise the destruction of bushfires. She describes how areas which were backburned were unaffected when the infamous bushfires ravaged much of Australia in 2019. Another example I found visually striking in the book was the Al-Tahla floating islands made of qasab reeds in Ma’dan, Iraq.

While science has facilitated the creation of some truly mind-boggling inventions, we are at a crossroads where the trajectory of our current methods will not be able to carry us much further. As issues like resource depletion

and climate change become ever present, increasing our collaborations with diverse design practitioners will become crucial to: (1) facilitate a sustainable relationship between science and the rest of society; (2) anticipate the needs of stakeholders from an individual to organisational level; and (3) tackle existing ‘wicked’ problems in the most direct and inclusive way. But to do this, we clearly need more designers, including futurists, in our synbio teams and research groups. Jestin and Andrew reflected that it could be useful to include design approaches in the ethics and social dimension section of grants and papers, to enhance the relevance and breadth of implications and provide greater justification for funding collaborations with designers (read more about how we did this on page 72). Not only can this provide a competitive edge for your work, but it could enable it to effect greater change.

To end, I’d like to encourage the sceptics among you to have a go. I often get the feeling that ‘interdisciplinarity’ is a buzzword thrown around to give projects a degree of excitement. But my honest experience in this ASC team has been one of true collaboration. It has challenged my personal perspectives as a scientist and provided me with a great insight into biodesign, an area which I’d never heard of until this year, let alone expected I’d be writing an article about.

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Made-to-Odor (2020) Designed by Thomas Lee and Jestin George. Illustrated by Eloise Myatt.

This is a story set in an alternate world where a customer orders a personalised synthetic biology service…

They come to your house, take swabs and samples of the unique microbial life in that indoor environment–kinda like celebrity chefs, but, with a sort of zany cable-guy service vibe–and they deliver these designed organisms that release sensory experiences into the atmosphere of the indoors, further augmented by perhaps these spray bottles…

The customer’s neighbour sees what he’s up to and thinks, “Ooh, I might like something similar,” and so she orders the same service, her own designed organism for her house, and she, too, enjoys some sort of sensory experience…

The two neighbours decide to swap their custom-designed organisms–which is actually against the policy of the service– but these two people exercise their agency… The service is horrified, but the neighbours enjoy the switch, nonetheless highlighting that people will often misuse designs that are intended for other purposes.

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Making waves at the edge of synthetic biology Written by Henrico Adrian and Caitlin Sives

The synthetic biology (synbio) sector here in Australia has grown swiftly over the past decade, leading to a thriving ecosystem of Aussie bio-innovators armed with the know-how and can-do attitude required to unlock the nation’s synbio potential1.

The Australian Government recognises the role synbio can play in building its bioeconomy, highlighted by capacity-building investments such as the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology (AUD 35 million)2 and CSIRO’s Synthetic Biology Future Science Platform Future Science Platform and BioFoundry (AUD 28 million)3 – programs that bring together academia and industry players to collectively drive R&D and the industrial translation of synbio innovations. These initiatives are also coupled with the establishment of state-of-the-art infrastructure, including BioFoundries4,5, that enable local synthetic biologists to rapidly bioengineer technologies with highthroughput “Design-Build-Test-Learn” cycles.

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The world famous Bondi Beach tidal pool.

Image credit: Kelvin Li via Unsplash.

The Australian company at the front lines of the industry turning waste into value.

Considering these exciting developments, it isn’t a surprise that the synbio industry landscape in Australia is beginning to flourish. In Sydney (Gadigal land) alone, there are multiple newly founded companies looking to bioengineer microorganisms to sustainably manufacture a range of products, including foodstuffs, chemicals, and even biohydrogen6.

Our Australasian Synbio Challenge (ASC) team had hypothesised a unique strategy to enhance the biosynthesis of high-value terpene molecules (see page 14), but we had yet to consider the industrial and commercial dimensions of our research, and how it fits into the overarching context of Australia’s growing synbio industry. We figured that the best way to quell our burning questions was to get in touch with our team’s industry sponsor, Bondi Bio. Named after Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach (Bidjigal and Gadigal land), Bondi Bio are a young company genetically modifying photosynthetic cyanobacteria into living biofactories to generate terpenes for a variety of industrial applications.

Like plants, cyanobacteria naturally generate energy from light and carbon dioxide (CO2) to survive, producing oxygen (O2) as a by-product.

For this reason, biotechnologies exploiting cyanobacteria, like those developed by Bondi Bio, are often referred to as ‘solar biomanufacturing’.

We sat down with Bondi Bio’s Chief Technical Officer (CTO) - James Brown, and one of their Senior Strain Engineers - Dominik Kopp, to learn more about the creation of Bondi Bio, their business goals, and their broader mission. We also discussed synbio advancements, technical challenges faced by synbio companies, the trajectory of the industry and bioeconomy, and how educational and training initiatives are securing the next-generation of synthetic biologists.

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Tell us a bit about Bondi Bio; what do they do and how do they do it?

J: We focus on making high-value products from light and CO2, and specifically

on using cyanobacteria. We produce high-value molecules for a broad range of markets, from nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals, flavours and fragrances, to agriculture and aquaculture products. We focused the business initially on highvalue manufacturing, but we have the ability to capture CO2 and bioremediate waste streams, so we see ourselves, long-term, as an engineering team that solves problems using biology.

D: We think our business is fluid, and we like to keep it broad with the high-value

compounds that we produce having a wide range of applications. Companies nowadays have to get rid of their CO2, and we can do that while also producing something of value.

James, tells us a bit about your journey into Bondi Bio and how you became its CTO. J: I originally trained as an engineer, and I’ve always had a drive to design and build to

solve problems. I was midway through my undergraduate engineering degree when I took a biology class, and I was so inspired by my two lecturers at the University of Cambridge (UK) that I ditched half of my classes to take all the classes I could related to biology. My time in Boston as an iGEM ambassador inspired me to work on genetic circuits and programming cell behaviour. I then came back to Cambridge to undertake the UK’s first PhD in Synthetic Biology at the Dept of Plant Science. In the 15 years since, I mainly worked in industry roles, until starting Bondi Bio.

Dominik, why did you pursue an industry position in a startup after completing your PhD? D: It grew organically for me; I was always drawn towards applications rather than

purely fundamental research. I like to use the knowledge that’s out there and turn it into something of value that solves problems. After I finished my masters working with cyanobacteria and photosynthesis, I knew that I wanted to work in problem solving, and I specifically chose cyanobacteria because I thought it would be a cool technology that has the potential to do a lot of things and solve a range of problems. Fortunately, James started Bondi Bio when I finished my PhD in Australia, allowing me to join the company.

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What’s the overarching development pipeline at Bondi Bio when it comes to developing new strains for production?

D: In general, we identify terpene molecules that are interesting in the cosmetics,

flavours, fragrances, and recently the nutraceutical markets and we focus on those targets for a while through different stages. First is the proof-of-concept studies where we look for trace amounts of a molecule in certain microbes and we undergo iterations to see which produces the highest yields. We look at the information that’s already out there, like which enzymes have been characterised and which have been expressed in E. coli and yeast and see how far along the literature is. As we go, we learn about the applications of these molecules and generate model strains as foundations for the ones to come. We also learn how to tinker with their genes and how to improve their metabolic pathways. In terms of strain development, we’ve found a way to make everything modular, which allows us to work with many different species.

“We see ourselves long term as an engineering team that solves problems using biology.“ – James Brown Bondi Bio CTO

Q: What are some of the advantages of using cyanobacteria compared to other microbial biofactories?

D: There’s the obvious advantage of using CO2 and light compared to uptaking

carbon from glucose and compared to harvesting plants using biomass to feed the fermentation process, it feels like the next step in making an efficient and sustainable solution. There are also some not-so-obvious advantages of using cyanobacteria, for example, expression of certain enzymes like cytochrome P450 or toxic antifungal molecules are harder in yeast. P450 enzymes are involved in the decoration of terpenes, which become terpenoid molecules, and they’re naturally expressed in cyanobacteria, so it doesn’t require co-expression of different factors, like in E. coli.

J: We’re working with some of the fastest growing photosynthetic organisms on the planet, the rates of biomass accumulation in the recent months are some of the highest we’ve seen compared to the literature, and when you compare them to microalgae, plants and seaweed, it’s several orders of magnitude higher. There’s also the bioremediation aspect. Cyanobacteria are inherently robust and can tolerate a wide pH range, heavy metals, and toxins. Most traditional microbial biofactories require consistent and precise conditions, so using cyanobacteria opens the possibility of remediating waste streams directly, while also creating something of value.

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A bioreactor (any vessel used to contain a growing, liquid culture) full of cyanobacteria.

The lights provide artifical and controllable levels of photosynthesis.

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Image credit: Dominik Kopp.

What kind of challenges are faced in the solar biomanufacturing of terpenes?

D: The main challenge recently is that there’s very little work done in the literature on

growing cyanobacteria to scale, which creates issues from a business perspective.

The good news is that there are a lot of companies out there that are working on figuring out how to grow photosynthetic organisms at high densities, and others that are developing new strains that can grow to high densities with just a bit of light and nutrients and can facilitate the fermentation process. From the genetic engineering side, understanding the genetic regulation in cyanobacteria is the main obstacle; we partner with other universities that work on transcriptomics, metabolomics, and proteomics to understand how they react to genetic changes and how to make their genetic complexity work for us.

J: From an engineering perspective, there’s also some hardware challenges. Photo-

synthetic organisms are different to sugar-driven organisms, and we’ve tried retrofitting bioreactors to fit the needs of cyanobacteria, but it’s a waste of time.

We’re working with companies that produce world-leading reactors that can scale to hundreds of thousands of litres. There are also regulatory barriers and the lack of bioprocessing facilities in Australia, so alongside the scientific and technical challenges there are also logistical challenges.

“You have to convince the customer base and develop trust between people and the technology” – Dominik Kopp Senior Strain Engineer

Howoed onsB id io B inorc porew en t a iec s tin c isd ove c ier sinot theirworkdwha na iec ts tin ldec s do they keep an eye on?

D: We’re always on top of the latest literature in terms of metabolic engineering,

cyanobacteria, and biodiscoveries like characterisation of enzymes and enzyme classes in plant species are important for us. From a personal point-of-view, there’s a lot of interesting happenings around post-transcriptional regulation in cyanobacteria, and carbon fixation processes. The release of new bioprocessing technologies is also important for improving the scalability of production.

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What is Bondi Bio’s business model and how do they operate within the international terpene market?

J: We’re a business-to-business company that partners with market leaders and

works with them to provide supply solutions with an ongoing royalty payment for the engineered strains we provide. We also work with large resource companies that emit a lot of CO2 to see how we could capture that CO2 and convert it into valuable compounds for other companies that already have a product on the market and are looking for alternative solutions for supply. We’re establishing longterm, trust-based relationships with existing market players and provide them with a sustainable source of natural products, and so we’ve got a huge range of different molecules across different applications.

Image credit: Stefan via Unsplash.

Image credit: Dominik Kopp.

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Howoed onsB id io B e4nn ed la urt a 5dhow na od they measure sustainability in what they do and what they make?

J: A ‘natural product’ is a category of products that are made by a living organism

through biological processes as opposed to chemical processes. Astaxanthin (a blood-red terpene pigment used as a dietary supplement and food colouring), for example, is primarily produced through chemical processes for the market, but in nature they’re produced by Haematococcus pluvialis microalgae. The astaxanthin that we make is identical to the naturally-derived one from the algae.

From our perspective, our products are typically generated in growing plants or microorganisms, and we’re simply using human ingenuity to build that process into a more efficient one that captures CO2 and is economically and commercially viable.

D: You can find a lot of definitions for the term ‘natural’, and it’s used a lot in

marketing, and ironically some of the ways of deriving chemical compounds are more unsustainable than intended. Think about how many trees have to be cut down to source a bit of sandalwood oil? (Sandalwood oil predominantly consists of sesquiterpenes and is used in perfumes and cosmetics). Of course, one has to critically analyse the whole production chain and environmental impact of each production strategy. But in a lot of ways expressing genes and producing a natural compound in a fermenter can lower the environmental impact of the production.

J: The demand for certain compounds is only getting higher. For example, valencene

(a sesquiterpene with a citrusy aroma used in pesticides, cosmetics, and cleaning products) is a high value oil derived from oranges, and it takes a million oranges to make a cup of valencene, so just imagine the land use, time, effort, and energy needed. A combination of climate change and habitat destruction are also wiping out often rare animal species that suffer from small annual harvests. We replicate the production of these compounds through biochemical synthesis by putting them into a microbe that uses light and CO2 to overcome these problems and contribute to the circular bioeconomy.

D: ‘Natural’ is very much used as a marketing term, alongside ‘biodegradability’ and

other fancy terms that are put on the package. You have to convince the customer base and develop trust between people and the technology. There’s also a responsibility for the next wave of genetically modified technologies to generate that trust.

Photograph (top) of the ocean, naturally full of green cyanobacteria. Biotech companies will either buy a strain already isolated from the ocean and kept in organism banks, or else isolate their own strains from the wild.

Photograph (bottom) of pilot scale photobioreactor set-up at Bondi Bio. Here, bioengineered strains of cyanobacteria are grown in a controlled environment where they are feed light, carbon dioxide, and water.

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What are Bondi Bio’s thoughts on the recently released CSIRO Australian Synthetic Biology roadmap?

D: It’s a good document to have, it’s great to read and it’s nice to know that there’s a

greater push towards the synbio industry in Australia. The people here are positive, and it’s a positive environment for synbio startups in Australia and so the roadmap is a great tool for the future.

J: It’s an important document, and it’s great that it lays out a key set of recommend-

ations. It’s a step in the right direction for synbio in Australia. From a personal perspective, the documents and political processes were vital to secure funding for synbio development in the UK. Hopefully it can provide the necessary catalyst to attract public and private funding to the space and support the strategic growth of a world-class synthetic biology sector in Australia.

What are Bondi Bio’s thoughts on synbio education, training up the next generation of synthetic biologists, and opportunities like the Australasian Synbio Challenge (ASC)?

D: It’s very important to get new scientists

enthusiastic about the synbio space. Getting new people into the industry, and allowing them to learn from those that established it in the first place, can progress the field from engineering organisms into building them. Training new people is fundamental and the ASC enables that.

Many synbio startups in the U.S. come from iGEM, where they learnt about the problems in the world and how to solve them through biology. I think it’s great that we now have an Australian-based challenge and I’d like to see it continue and include not just scientists, but also policymakers and designers, to make a team that functions together. In terms of education, a lot of universities are involved in pushing synbio beyond the curriculum and teaching the necessary tools.

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Bondi Bio’s Dominik Kopp monitors growth flasks filled with strains of green cyanobacteria that have been newly bioengineered to secrete high-value chemicals.

Image credit: Dominik Kopp.

J: Synbio is rapidly growing, and the curricula across the best universities aren’t always

up to date with the latest updates. What iGEM and the ASC are doing brilliantly is putting small teams of multidisciplinary people into a supportive environment where they set their own goals and their own objectives about what they’re passionate about; letting them work in close proximity to researchers and progress to deliver solutions in a short period of time. This is far more representative of a modern engineering team than the master-apprentice setting of traditional academic groups.

“What comes next for synbio isn’t just replacing petrochemical manufacturing processes with biomanufacturing processes, there’s also the move to solving problems with biology alongside other disciplines.”

– James Brown Bondi Bio CTO

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How does Bondi Bio see the synbio industry in 10 years, and where do they see themselves in that future?

J: The difference between synbio 10 years ago and now is emergence of actual

products and services. The field has transitioned from seeing the potential in the discipline to now being able to buy a coat made of fermented spider silk or a whole range of cosmetic and fragrance products made using genetically modified organisms to produce those ingredients sustainably. But it isn’t yet ubiquitous, the hope for Australia now is to build on this strong research-based foundation alongside all these natural assets and build a thriving ecosystem that continues to create these types of products with new applications. What comes next for synbio isn’t just replacing petrochemical manufacturing processes with biomanufacturing processes, there’s also the move to solving problems with biology alongside other disciplines. So far, it’s been tough for Bondi Bio on the front line as an early entrant into the space here, but we’re hopeful that the burgeoning Australian bioeconomy, through startups, initiatives, and funding, will grow significantly. In 10 years, I hope Bondi Bio is still thriving, possibly with multiple offices in Australia, large scale manufacturing facilities, partners in different disciplines, selling products into different markets and capturing a whole lot of CO2.

D: I think people expect a lot when it comes to synbio, they expect immediate returns, but it takes a bit longer than they think. But as we go, knowledge and tech will exponentially grow. From a scientist’s point of view, I’d like to see organisms like cyanobacteria being understood better to be precisely engineered so that we can establish new processes and products that are yet to be seen. For the last decade we’ve seen products that mimic products from the petrochemical industry, but in the future, I’d like to see if we can create something that has never been seen before alongside biodesigners and creative practitioners.

“… our products are typically generated in growing plants or microorganisms, and we’re simply using human ingenuity to build that process into a more efficient one that captures CO2 and is economically and commercially viable” – James Brown Bondi Bio CTO

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Riding the synbio wave together The insights provided by Bondi Bio in this interview were valuable not only for the purposes of the ASC, but also to me personally as an upcoming synthetic biologist.

Speaking with James and Dominik imparted me with new knowledge about the Australian synbio industry and the collective efforts to maximise its impact. I was particularly intrigued and impressed with Bondi Bio’s ability to contribute to the bioeconomy in a way that complements their business model. For instance, they mentioned the bioremediation aspect of their technologies, explaining how their capture of CO2 serves the two-fold purpose of simultaneously fuelling their microbial biofactories while sequestering problematic carbon emissions.

The prominence of engineering in Bondi Bio also surprised me. Initially, I thought they were a typical synbio-focused company, but the integration of James’ engineering background with his CTO role—exemplified by his detailed consideration of bioreactor designs—highlighted the benefits of a cross-disciplinary skillset in synbio. To me, this confirmed synbio’s capacity to synergise with other fields to become more than just the sum of their individual parts, and emphasises what SYNTHESIS is all about: interdisciplinary collaboration to solve real-world problems!

As an exemplar for displacing conventional chemical synthesis approaches for terpene production, Bondi Bio inspired our ASC team to explore the social dimensions of emerging biotechnologies. Even though the transition to sustainable production methods derived from synbio are generally beneficial, it is important to consider all the possible implications and envision futures that can arise from the introduction of this technology into society.

James Brown

Dominik Kopp

Co-Founder & Chief Technical Officer

Senior Strain Engineer

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“When we think about partnering with biology, what is limiting us and where can we advance our tooling, our workflows?

It’s easy to say, "We’re limited in DNA synthesis or we’re limited in the design tools we have or the testing we can do…"

But what about the tools for ideation?

What about the tools for understanding the world? What about the tools for understanding a world that doesn’t exist yet?

We need tools to help us imagine. Imagine in the context of what is but also in the context of what could be.”

— Drew Endy, synthetic biologist at Stanford University (USA), as quoted from Episode 05 of Ferment.TV entitled Must We Revolutionise Nothing?

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Image credit: Dominik Kopp.

Scents of this land: Learnings from Australia’s iotb t s r hnc e ologiss t Written by Lucy Slip and Emily Venga

Indigenous Australians have understood and used native plants—and their essential oils— for tens of thousands of years. Essential oils are a complex mixture of molecules, including terpenoids, which play important roles inside plants1. For example, the terpenoid eucalyptol, is the main ingredient of eucalyptus oil and acts as a natural insecticide to help protect eucalyptus trees in the hostile Aussie bush2. Eucalyptol is also flammable and key to the success of Australia’s fire-suppression strategy known as ‘backburning’.

This practice originates from ‘Fire-Stick Farming’, which was invented by Aboriginal Australians to, in part, promote the new germination of plants, such as eucalyptus trees, in the Aussie bush. FireStick Farming began 120,000 years ago and the practice has been passed down from generation to generation through cultural protocols 3.

The demand for plant-derived terpenoids is widespread due to their diverse utility in pharmaceuticals, food additives, fragrances, flavourants, cosmetics, pesticides/insect repellents and chemical feedstocks4-6. In our Australasian Synbio Challenge (ASC) project, we were not interested in any one terpenoid per se but rather the development of a synbiobased platform technology that enhances the biological machinery inside microorganisms (i.e., cyanobacteria) to increase their capacity to produce terpenoid compounds. However, by taking a step back from the lab bench, we were able to view our science through a more sociotechnical lens; that is, we began to ponder what impact these hypothetical terpenoid-

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producing microorganisms might have in a contemporary Australian context. Recognising First Nations People’s longstanding expertise and relationship with valuable terpenoids like eucalyptol, we engaged with Indigenous plant knowledge holder, Henrietta Baird.

In an interactive online workshop over Zoom, Henrietta gave us an insight into the roots of traditional relationships with native flora and shared her perspectives on synbio ventures and the importance of respectful interactions between Western and Indigenous scientists and communities. She shared her knowledge about the ancient and ongoing use of eucalyptus oil as a vapour rub and in aiding congestion and inflammation, as well as the use of native Australian paperbark trees (Melaleucas family) as an alternative natural wound covering. The latter half of the workshop was focused on the hands-on practice of weaving. Here, Henrietta showed us how to weave bracelets via traditional techniques. She demonstrated the process using the long leaves of the blue flax plant (Linaceae family) and got us to do the same with electric cables as a way to store them neatly.

In this article, we share what we learnt from Henrietta during the workshop, from both a scientist’s (Emily) and designer’s (Lucy) perspective. We also reflect on how these sorts of discussions need to occur more often within the synbio community, especially during the early stages of a project.

is a Kuku-Yalandji woman from Far North Queensland, and a Sydney based dancer, choreographer, writer, and artist.

Henrietta explores movement based on the methods of collecting, preparing, and applying traditional plants to make medicine, tell stories, and preserve cultural knowledge through dance.

Henrietta is currently developing a performance for her residency with Critical Path, Australia’s leading centre for choreographic research and development. This work, entitled ‘Plant A Promise’, centres around land management and climate change from both Western scientific practices and First Nation’s cultural perspectives.

Henrietta was also part of the Indigenous Education team at the Royal Botanical Gardens on Gadigal land (Sydney), where she taught visitors—old and young—about native flora and fauna.

Image credit: Hack-Lab - The Anthropocene. Produced by: Strange Attractor in collaboration with Critical Path 2019. Presented by: Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (Powerhouse Museum), Sydney Australia. Facilitated by: Rebecca Conroy. Photographer: Matthew Syres.

While we were unable to do the workshop with Henrietta face-to-face due to lockdowns, the photographs throughout this article reflect the same learning experience curated by Henrietta for a similar outcome.

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Retion c e sfromign s ead dnrae scientist Something that really stood out to me was when Henrietta described how she was interested in observing plants found in different Australian states, through scientific, medicinal, and also cultural lenses. This idea of understanding a plant, such as eucalyptus, from contrasting viewpoints will effectively reveal how we can respectfully take plants to make useful products that are better for our people and safer for our environment.

This philosophy can be applied to the way we look at the earth as a whole. In our discussion, Henrietta explained, “...with ‘Plant a Promise’, I want people to think about how we can change the way we live if we look at it from different states. To look at the earth from its natural state, to how it’s changing, to how it could be different through science, and what we could do as humans to change the way we live... to make it more environmentally friendly.”

This perspective also encapsulates both Indigenous and Western scientific views and knowledges, reflecting ideas of reciprocity and two-way knowledge sharing for better futures. It means we can gain the most holistic understanding of our natural environment and native flora to protect it, preserve it, and use it in sustainable ways. If we want to live in this ‘lucky country’, if we want to make more sustainable industries within an Australian-specific context, we need deep technical knowledge—like synbio—but more importantly, we need to collaborate more broadly. That includes working with Indigenous designers, scientists, Elders, and so forth.

While talking with Henrietta, I really enjoyed gaining a deeper understanding and appreciation of the diversity and uses of native flora. I admit that I came to her workshop with limited knowledge about native customs and Indigenous perspectives of Western science. I initially assumed the workshop would focus on Indigenous views of synbio and how they can be employed to produce synthetic compounds derived (directly or indirectly) from native flora. I also expected that we would discuss new avenues for our research project.

Instead, Henrietta’s workshop gave me glimpses into some of the oldest knowledge sharing customs in the world. When I asked her views on bioengineering microorganisms (like cyanobacteria)

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“It’s best that we go to the community with an idea, put forward the benefits and ask them if they agree or disagree with the proposal. It’s also essential that we involve the Elders”.

– Henrietta Baird Kuku-Yalandji Artist

to manufacture terpenoids that are naturally produced by native flora, her answer made me realise I was sort of asking the wrong question… Henrietta responded, “It’s best that we go to the community with an idea, put forward the benefits and ask them if they agree or disagree with the proposal. It’s also essential that we involve the Elders.” This made me realise that the question isn’t, “Are Indigenous Australians keen on synbio interventions?” but rather, “How do we start having much more meaningful discussions with the Elders about this technology? And are we willing to adapt our strategies based on those conversations?”

Henrietta emphasised the importance of working together respectfully, and in an open and honest way, especially when collaborating and knowledge sharing with people from different professional fields and personal backgrounds. She also revealed an openness to change within Indigenous cultural protocols, so long as it is genuinely beneficial and transparent.

Image credit: Hack-Lab - The Anthropocene. Produced by: Strange Attractor in collaboration with Critical Path 2019. Presented by: Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (Powerhouse Museum), Sydney Australia. Facilitated by: Rebecca Conroy. Photographer: Matthew Syres.

I also came away with a sense that the impact of innovation should never outweigh the cost to the land, and thus a key objective of synbio should be to provide safe alternatives to unsustainable practices that already affect important ancestral lands. Fortunately, a sizeable percentage of Australian synbio does aim to improve the processing waste streams, which represents a positive step in the right direction7.

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It is fortunate, but I do wonder if such synbio initiatives could be more successful if they endeavoured to become more interdisciplinary.

I recently explored this idea as a project in the Biodesign Studio at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). The studio teaches design and biotechnology students to work collaboratively to create a speculative design in the context of synbio to better understand the sociotechnical and cultural dimensions of a synbio future. My group created a project called Sustain, which looked at the theme of sustainability in food.

We noticed that a range of different food-based industries and strategies—including genetically modified organism (GMO)based food, permaculture, veganism and vegetarianism, locallysourced produce, and organic foods—all had a common goal of ‘sustainability within the food and agriculture industry’. We asked ourselves, “What if we designed a restaurant that used all of these approaches to address the common goal of a more sustainable eatery?”

Thinking creatively, we decided to consider unlikely collaborations across these polarising groups and designed an eatery called Sustain. The intention behind Sustain was to show how such groups might collaborate with one another; groups who have shared values and aims but very different strategies of action. For example, Sustain openly combines GM foods and organic food philosophies, which are both communicated as ‘positive’ features of the food through the menu design. We also chose to use the concept of modularity, which is common in genetic engineering, with the smoothie choices on our menu. Here, customers are allowed to build their own smoothie by choosing one ingredient from the ‘health promoter’ list, one from the ‘immune boosters’, and a final one from the ‘craving terminators’, playing on common synbio jargon.

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In the case of this workshop then, I wonder, how might the synbio community more meaningfully address sustainability goals if they collaborated with others already advocating on this topic, like the many Indigenous Elders across the country? Henrietta spoke about integrating Elders into projects that are taking place on their land.

Indigenous people should be involved in all parts of the process, and this includes (but is not limited to) helping them to understand the project, its benefits, and its challenges. This practice of respect is vital and is not being done enough throughout Australia as a whole. We can show respect by using our projects as a space for collaboration, two-way knowledge sharing and amplification of Indigenous voices, making sure that Indigenous people are benefiting from the work we do.

Crickets and other insects are nutritious food sources that are gaining more attention within the agriculture industry as we look for more sustainable food alternatives.

Here is an example of where we have intentionally inluded the benefits of the GM crop, in this case, drought resistant wholemeal grain to make bread.

Applying the modular ‘build-your-own’ language of synbio to the context of a cafe: ‘build-your-own’ smoothies! How might integrating this language in a GMO friendly cafe influence feelings about GMOs?

Image credits: Both images (left and above) were created by the UTS Biodesign Studio (2021) student team, Sustain.

Student creators: Holly Darge, Lucinda Slip, Matthew Anderson, Jasneet Sachdev, and Isabella Voyzey.

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Image credit: Hack-Lab - The Anthropocene. Produced by: Strange Attractor in collaboration with Critical Path 2019. Presented by: Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (Powerhouse Museum), Sydney Australia. Facilitated by: Rebecca Conroy. Photographer: Matthew Syres.

It’s interesting to imagine how these sorts of collaborations might take shape in the future.

What forms would these discussions take? For example, I really enjoyed how Henrietta opened an informal dialogue during our weaving, which provided a relaxed and candid environment to broaden our perspectives beyond our initial project aim. Henrietta was able to exemplify the importance of effective knowledge sharing amongst a unique group of people from diverse cultural and academic backgrounds in a time of disconnect and virtual learning. Whilst weaving together, we experienced first-hand the tradition of spoken knowledge sharing in Indigenous culture. This experience, while unique, was not dissimilar from spoken knowledge sharing in science. Lab work, conferences, classrooms, and initiatives like the ASC all incorporate spoken knowledge transfer between. I also found the effect of the repetitive motions involved in weaving a creation to be calming and almost meditative.

As a designer, I was really interested in Henrietta’s dance practice. Henrietta uses dance as a way to share her knowledge of collecting, preparing, and applying bush medicine on KukuYalandji Country in far-north Queensland to her audience based on Gadigal land in Sydney. She creates a sensory experience involving scents, sounds, and dance to bring the audience ‘into the bush’. I think the way she manages to share her Country and her home, transporting the audience through the experience of dance, is a beautiful way to share knowledge and personal experience.

Whilst learning about the multitude of uses of peppermint gum and having a go at the weaving techniques, I was quite struck by the fact that Henrietta’s knowledge goes back thousands of years.

It reminds me that we are surrounded by knowledge in the natural environment and by taking the time to listen to the people who know this land better than anyone else, we can learn a great deal.

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I think non-Indigenous scientists and designers, such as ourselves, need to constantly consider our place in decolonisation and continually question what we have been taught. Everyone has had very different educational backgrounds, but I think often Indigenous knowledge is disregarded and not considered when projects are being undertaken. This is something that needs to change, and everyone has a responsibility to challenge themselves to re-evaluate what they have been taught and to learn from Indigenous people without views of Western superiority. We all need to consider whether our projects are ethical, sustainable, and beneficial solutions to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

We need to start having these conversations long before going to ‘seek approval’ for using Indigenous knowledge in biotechnologies. Henrietta actually mentioned a personal story about some individuals who went to an (unspecified) Aboriginal community to collect traditional knowledge about a plant. They went on to patent the traditional name of the plant and made money off it, even charging the Indigenous community to use the name of that plant. Instead of trying to make money out of and exploiting Indigenous knowledges, and breaking Indigenous cultural law, we need to start listening to local, Aboriginal communities and involving Elders in the process of collaboration. Henrietta explained, “Respect is making sure the Elders you are working with agree to it. It’s about getting them to understand the process of what you’re trying to do and if it’s something good, I think they will be open to agreeing with you.”

So, how do we move forward to create a synbio community that is more inclusive for First Nations People wanting to get involved in synbio research and industry? This is crucial in moving forward together, combining Western knowledge with Indigenous knowledge to come up with better solutions for our future. A synbio community that shares goals with Indigenous communities is what we need to aim for, prioritising inclusivity and the sustainable development.

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As a scientist and a budding synthetic biologist, I have an innate interest in how things work and a drive to investigate the world around me.

Accordingly, I really enjoyed hearing about the natural alternatives to common products and the traditional uses of native plants. Moreover, interacting with an Indigenous plant knowledge holder, like Henrietta, has broadened my perspective. It has inspired me to consider more collaborative approaches to exploring synbio technologies when it comes to addressing wicked problems in a meaningful way.

“Respect is making sure the Elders you are working with agree to it. It’s about getting them to understand the process of what you’re trying to do and if it’s something good, I think they will be open to agreeing with you.”

– Henrietta Baird Kuku-Yalandji Artist

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What if... we worked more closely with Indigenous practitioners and Elders?

we understood and followed benefit-sharing practices and cultural law?

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we genuinely pursued two-way knowledge sharing?

these yet-to-be-tried approaches unlock synbio innovation and realises a true bioeconomy in future Australia?

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Questioning our perceptions of sustainability Written by Henrico Adrian and Emily Venga

Notions of a green future A freshly graduated synthetic biologist walks out of the halls of their university, looking up into the sky and envisioning the countless possibilities that await them in the near future. Creating a startup sounds like the perfect first step in building their career; the numerous business ideas that were generated over their last few years of study now have a chance of coming to life and satisfying a market need, while also pocketing them some profit and developing their professional portfolio.

Sustainability is the name of the game nowadays, and our graduate imagines a business that merges their scientific knowhow with environmentally friendly supply chains and an enticing marketing strategy to create a ‘green’ product that’s good for their customers and the planet. But after months of research, collaboration, and attempted implementation, they began to question the presumptions and perceptions about the true nature of sustainable products. What does ‘natural’ really mean?

How does a company (or anyone, for that matter) measure ‘sustainability’ and ‘environmental friendliness’? After learning the concept of greenwashing, our synthetic biologist begins to realise how easily it influences consumer behaviour, its grip on our modern lives, and the harm it can and has caused to all.

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When looking for answers leads to more questions As science students, we had a very good idea of the scientific rationale underpinning our Australasian Synbio Challenge (ASC) project: introduce little protein compartments into microbes to enhance their ability to biosynthesise industrial chemicals, called terpenes. In our attempt to clearly and concisely describe this concept to designers, we discovered that we didn’t really know how to communicate our work effectively. We tried various approaches including drawing diagrams, showing the designers images of metabolic pathways, using metaphors and analogies, but in the end, the designers kept asking “Why, though?”

Initially we, the scientists, envisioned this process as being about educating the designers about what we do and why it matters. However, a much more worthwhile outcome was realising that we were repeatedly defining the problem space and framing the project’s benefits around a concept we weren’t actually that comfortable with: ‘sustainability’.

Looking at our Miro board—an online, collaborative whiteboard where we shared ideas—it was clear that sustainability was a highly repeated phrase, unconsciously universal with the scientists in the team (have a look at some screen shots from our Miro board opposite). Although we all knew what we meant by ‘sustainability’, none of us really understood its specific implications in practice. For example, what does sustainable actually mean? How do you measure it? How much of the supply chain needs to be sustainable for it to fit the definition? These questions swirled around in our thoughts and compelled a desire for more clarity.

Greenwashing is something that we realised is hardly being discussed— let alone addressed—within the synbio community here in Australia.

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As we started discussing these big questions together, we stumbled upon a trouble-some marketing strategy: green-washing. With the rapidly growing societal concerns about the earth’s future, companies have begun to mislead consumers about the true environmental benefit of their products and services. This unethical marketing approach misinforms unsuspecting consumers about an organisation’s goals, actions and motivations, which causes consumers to put their faith in harmful products and services rather than investing in genuine environmentally focused innovations. Examples include Volkswagen’s use of deceptive software when their diesel engines were being tested for emissions to provide fraudulent, more desirable results1; or Coca Cola’s proud claim of reducing their water usage by 4%, which later turned out to be unverifiable2. Here, people were tricked into believing that the products and services being offered were less harmful to the environment than they actually were.

Greenwashing is something that we realised is hardly being discussed—let alone addressed—within the synbio community here in Australia. We recognised this was a critical concept that we should investigate for the ASC, and decided that it would be beneficial for us to consult a series of designers who focus heavily on sustainability in their work. Our biodesign supervisor, Jestin George, had previously run focus groups for the Australian CSIRO Synthetic Biology Production of Bio-Based Materials Symposium held online in June 20213, and the insights that the attending designers provided became an important focal point in our research. After watching these focus group sessions, we then interviewed four designers whose work we were interested in: Manan Pahwa, an industrial designer in India; Jessye Grundlingh, a small business owner and industrial designer in Canada; Nahum Mclean, a fashion design PhD researcher in Australia; and Leila Wallisser, a materials designer in Germany.

In this article, we draw upon their combined knowledge to shed light on the prevalence of greenwashing in the marketing of synbio-related products, the double-edged sword that is bioplastics, how interdisciplinary collaboration can help tackle these issues, and the changes needed to have a better chance at tackling the wicked problems which both science and design are focusing on. This is by no means a complete literature review of greenwashing; but instead, serves to show what can come out of interdisciplinary discussions.

Screenshot images taken from the team’s Miro board. Prompts were responded to using virtual sticky notes.

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Spotlight on designers interviewed Manan Pahwa is a research-driven designer enthusiastic about the role of materials in daily life. Based in Gurugram, India, he is the founder of Materionomics, a material-driven design consultancy that curates, educates, and consults on the responsible sourcing and applications of materials. Materionomics started with the intent of archiving and sharing Manan’s research around the materials he encounters in everyday life. He is also the curator of Society of Materials, a series of exhibitions bridging the accessibility of material-knowledge with designers and creative professionals who are directly involved in material application. Currently, his focus is to double down on the interdisciplinary nature of his work and experimentation, build a material-aggregator platform, and design lifestyle products with customer-delight as a focus. Through this, he aims to find novel opportunities for material-driven design solutions within different industries like architecture and the built environment, functional textiles, mobility, retail, fashion, healthcare, mobility and clean tech, alongside scientists and engineers. Manan’s experience and passion for interdisciplinary collaboration taught us the necessary building blocks needed to solve big problems across different fields. @materionomics

Jessye Lilly Joy Grundlingh, born and raised in Cape Town - South Africa, is a Toronto-based industrial designer and entrepreneur who designs products and systems that challenge the status quo, with a focus on sustainability. After winning the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) University Industrial Design medal in 2016 for a Sustainable Eating Toolkit4, she single-handedly founded the DIY skincare brand, Make.This.Universe (M.T.U), which allowed her to blend her passion for making with her desire to create more sustainable systems of consumption. M.T.U makes the science of skincare more accessible, allowing anyone to customise and create their own routine.

Jessye is inspired by the ways in which humans have always interacted with nature and the environment and traditional methods of making things based on a deep knowledge of the land and its materials. Her customer-facing experience with sustainable sourcing and processing has given us a glimpse into the true nature of sustainability in marketing and business, and the importance of education to inform society about greenwashing. @makethisuniverse

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Nahum Mclean is a design PhD researcher at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia, and a freelance designer and maker.

Born and raised in Sydney’s Blue Mountains (Dharug land), Nahum’s research is practice-based and focuses on using readily available ingredients and processes for futures-oriented material thinking. In his research, Nahum seeks to answer the question: how can sustainable materials be developed in preparation for a range of possible futures?

This has led him to experiment with starches, bioplastics, agar, gels, biofoams, proteins and cellulose manipulations, with the aim of recreating, improvising, and expanding on experimental recipes. Nahum leads The Bio Kitchen undergraduate course at UTS, in which students learn design principles and practices for undertaking materials research, using these to speculate on the possible social and scientific applications for bio-based materials and biotechnologies in the future. Nahum has worked for some of Australia’s leading fashion houses as a drape-based designer and patternmaker. His knowledge of materiality, fabric handle, and drape has equipped him to evaluate sustainable materials and imagine potential uses for these materials. Nahum’s awareness of the greenwashing present in modern marketing and commerce, and his careful approach to only use terms and phrases that accurately reflect the nature of the materials he works with, was very interesting to us. The integrity that he upholds has given us a framework for creating our solutions and recommendations.

Leila Wallisser has a background in Graphic Communication Design graduating from Central Saint Martins (UK) and is currently studying Material Design in Berlin, working specifically on Textile and Surface Design at Kunsthochschule Weißensee. Her work focuses on sustainability, merging various fields of design in order to investigate their effects on human behaviour, while also exploring how design functions can be used to influence behaviour and subtly break boundaries. Her practice involves bringing various fields of design together and adopts an information-oriented approach to make the hidden accessible through means of aesthetics, interaction, and criticality. Her work, Carbon Copy, was exhibited in the London Design Biennale. It focused on integrating natural aesthetics back into man-made materials, provoking the viewer to question the value of our resources and the consequences of our current relationship to nature. Leila also explores the realm of bioplastics through design, specifically the dynamics of their decay and the effects of their toxicity to a surrounding environment. Her personal experience with the way bioplastics are handled in Germany offers some interesting insights into the shortcomings and inefficiencies of waste streams, and how the average consumer is unaware of how little environmental benefit bioplastics currently have. @leilawall

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Bioplastics: A wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing?

Although our original research project’s concept was not directly linked to bioplastics, our aims to develop new technologies for the microbial biosynthesis of terpenes could benefit the bioplastic market. This is because some terpenes can be used as precursors, or building blocks, that can be polymerised to make bioplastics5.

In this way, investigating the issues surrounding bioplastics was of interest to our ASC team. Bioplastics also provide a useful example of why we need to embark on more multidisciplinary research and co-design right from the get-go. It was also something that our designers spoke about a lot in the focus groups which we drew our information from.

Despite the general public’s low technical knowledge of bioplastics, their perception of such materials is overwhelmingly positive6. Many consumers view bioplastics favourably and see them as being better than regular or recyclable plastics. In fact, one study found that most respondents did not consider—or were unaware of—the possible negative impact biodegradable plastics can have on the environment 6.

Unlike conventional petrochemical-derived plastics, bioplastics are typically made, wholly or partially, from biomass such as corn, starch, and yeast. They have been primarily developed as an alternative to single-use plastics due to their reusable and recyclable nature7, offering flexibility, durability, heat resistance, and transparency8.

It sounds like a good solution, but what most people don’t realise is that many waste facilities simply do not have the capacity to properly manage bioplastics and may end up sorting them out of appropriate waste streams and into landfill regardless. And then there is the issue of additives like plactisizers and stabilisers, which significantly reduce the biodegradability of bioplastics 9.

In our interview, Leila mentioned that “the average consumer is not aware of the various regulations that allow for a plastic to be labelled as bioplastic. Several categories of bioplastics fulfil a set of regulations that do not only allow for toxicity but are also unrealistic in its decomposition process and would require disposal grounds and/or systems that currently do not exist.” Leila also described how a lack of systemic support for bioplastic waste management in Berlin, Germany inhibits the benefits that they intend to provide, causing them to “...end up in landfill with toxic plastics, giving them no chance to decompose and making them contributors to the mountains of eternal waste”5. Current waste management systems simply do not support bio-based material disposal, but the terms used to market them entice consumers and provide a sense of relief and reassurance without knowing the reality behind the scenes.

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As more people are starting to understand, not all bioplastics are created equally.

What even is the difference between bioplastic, bio-based plastic, and bio-origin plastic? What do we mean, logistically, when we talk about a material being biodegradable, compostable, or recyclable? Which of these traits best represents a bioplastic? This messy context makes the growing tension in the biodesign community regarding bioplastics—despite their associated environmentally positive rationales—more understandable. Manan suggested that the problem arises from the niche application of these products and the “inability to manufacture bioplastics on a large scale to replace traditional plastics for the masses”, without which the desired environmental impact simply cannot be achieved.

“The average consumer knows nothing true about bioplastics. I think they [bioplastics] have been positioned as the goal for ‘sustainable packaging’, but this is because the companies selling compostable packaging—amongst other things—aren’t educating their own customers about the realities of those products.”

– Jessye Grundlingh M.T.U Owner

Jessye’s mission at M.T.U is to co-create sustainable products with consumers, providing workshops, custom cosmetics, and DIY kits. As a small business owner, and thus client of external packaging companies, Jessye has experienced firsthand how brand credibility and perception are directly impacted by greenwashing, subsequently interfering with consumer behaviour10. To overcome such a phenomenon—when it comes to packaging products in an environmentally conscious way—Jessye aims to engage in an open dialogue with her consumers about the realities of her products, including where they fall short of sustainability goals.

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Buzzwords and greenwashing Buzzwords pertaining to sustainability—things like ‘all-natural’, ‘plant-based’, ‘earth friendly’, and ‘green’—can mislead consumers and have led to a blind trust in these types of products. Nahum Mclean shared his dislike for this vernacular, stating, “Terms like ‘bio’ can often do more harm than good… I sometimes think bioplastics are worse than traditional plastics due to the misleading nature of the term, because they don’t cause a change in consumer behaviour… They are drop-in replacements that don’t engage with the underlying issues of why we have a plastics crisis”.

In 2011, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) released a report called Green Marketing and Australian Consumer Laws11 and specifically pointed out that buzzwords like ‘green’, ‘environmentally friendly/safe’, and ‘recyclable’ are not easy to quantify and are therefore misleading. This report also highlighted the need for claims to be accurate, substantiated, specific, and quantifiable. At the same time, they also recognised that companies often

“Terms like ‘bio’ can often do more harm than good… They are drop-in replacements that don’t engage with the underlying issues of why we have a plastics crisis.”

– Nahum Mclean Fashion Design PhD Researcher

find loopholes around these qualifiers, and as such, they added that, “You [the company] should be careful that the overall impression you create about the goods or services you sell is not misleading. In other words, it is not enough for each representation to be technically or narrowly correct. It is just as important to look at the overall impression created in the minds of average consumers in the target audience”.

In light of this, we started to wonder, how many others within the synbio community —like us—have relied on these buzzwords because they are easy to understand and can communicate value to a general audience? And are we therefore perhaps failing when we over simplify our scientific knowledge and don’t talk more with designers whose fields we may be trying to disrupt? Given that these buzzwords are so easy-to-use, the complexity of scientific concepts can be reduced to a point where they become ambiguous, and thus, without realising it, we might be guilty of contributing to misinformation. Even worse, the vagueness of buzzwords

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means they are difficult to regulate, enabling them to readily be employed to mislead consumers and generate a false sense of environmental morality12. This practice of greenwashing is becoming increasingly common in many industries, with one study identifying that approximately 98% of products on the market are presented as more environmentally sound than they actually are13. Cleaning and cosmetic products are among some of the most greenwashed, with one investigation determining that only 0.007% of cleaning products sold make verifiable ‘green’ claims14. These practices collectively, whether intentional or not, are all forms of greenwashing.

What is transparency without contextualisation?

In the interview, Leila shared her thoughts on bioplastics, stating, “They are a step in the direction towards a more sustainable future. The innovation of a material that is even able to decompose—and do so in a drastically shorter amount of time— is generally still a positive. Now the system around it just needs to follow…” Jessye gave a useful example, commenting on how the current waste management system is flawed in its failure to adjust to environmentally focused materials. Through her quest to source compostable mailers (shipping envelopes) for M.T.U, Jessye described how the companies that sell these mailers aren’t educating their own customers (companies like M.T.U) about the realities of their products. Namely, they don’t talk about the behind-the-scenes processes needed to recycle them, since it would “...go against their bottom line, which is to just sell more mailers.” As a result, the intent to make mailers sustainable is unfulfilled, and what remains is its greenwashed visage. Jessye also described how some of M.T.U’s customers were asking about these mailers, at which point she had to go one step further to mythbust their highly effective but ultimately untrue ‘sustainable’ branding.

Transparency is more than just providing the hard, cold, scientific facts. New products created using science and design—be those compostable mailers or bioplastics produced using synbio—must be considered through the systems in which they are expected to exist within. In the case of bioplastics, our designers discussed a range of system-focused strategies. Nahum mentioned the implementation of “community sized composting hubs” and “reducing opportunities for degradable materials to mix with non-degradable materials” as means of promoting awareness and access to waste disposal of organic matter where previously unavailable. Jessye added that governments need to prioritise education for the benefits of new, environmentally conscious products and materials. Leila described that there are “unquestionable environmental and economic benefits from reusing materials we have already produced, instead of creating more waste that takes up an increasing amount of space we cannot afford to lose.” She expressed that people at all levels will need to “...be more aware of the products

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Image credit: Make.This.Universe

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they are using and rethink the concept of waste”. Manan added that in the case of bioplastics, the public needs to better understand the whole lifecycle of the product and material, including manufacture, consumption or use, and disposal, for the system to support and function in society.

Of course, changes this radical won’t come immediately. But something designers are good at is designing for incremental change. Jessye also described this, saying, “Part of what you learn at design school is to question the brief you are given…

Your client might ask you do design A to solve B, but part of my job as a designer is to ask, is A even a solution to B? Is B the right problem to solve in the first place?”

One way that M.T.U is striving for incremental change is to continue to be “...vocal about greenwashing and fearmongering within the green beauty industry”. As such, Jessye dedicates a large chunk of her business hours to writing blogs, interviewing scientists, and running workshops that educate and inform her customer base about greenwashed marketing and what to look out for.

Actionable plans also go a long way in informing and motivating individuals. Nahum cited the Earth Logic Fashion Action Research Plan15, a wide-reaching initiative aimed at the fashion industry to create a healthy long-term future for it and the planet. Having a digestible set of steps and recommendations is extremely effective at convincing individuals to act. One of the Action Research Plan’s key goals is developing “diverse ways of knowing”, done through co-creation; “...collaboration between all involved which reaches beyond knowledge exchange and generates new ideas and actions”15. The emphasis on interdisciplinary learning highlights how a diverse set of skills and knowledge is needed to raise awareness and combat the issues of greenwashing.

Through the process of learning more about greenwashing and promises of a greener future, we began to understand that humility is a key attribute in making meaningful change. Humility is central to becoming more transparent and communicative, in educating ourselves, and, most importantly, in being open to criticism. Interestingly, humility was one of the four key attributes of the World Economic Forum’s 2021 report entitled Revisiting and Realizing the Promises of Synthetic Biology16.

Although we discuss the problem of greenwashing practices in this article, we hope you, as the reader, consider many of the article’s insightful proposals for making positive and meaningful systemic change. Perhaps one day, a synthetic biologist walking out of the halls of their graduation ceremony won’t have their dreams of developing a sustainable startup destroyed by greenwashing practices and a failing system. Hopefully instead, they will be empowered by genuine collaborations for delivering a future that we all build together.

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Considering social dimensions needs active strategies​ Written byJestin George

Start here

The biodesigners joined the UTS Australasian Synbio Challenge (ASC) team about two months after the team of allscientists had begun collaborating with one another. As such, designers played no part in drafting the project’s ethical and social dimensions statement.​ To the right is the original statement written by the science students prior to any input from the biodesigners. The moment in which I read it for the first time will remain very vividly in my memory. It was a moment I knew I could point back to when making tangible reasons for why integrating designers into the project was so critical.​ My response to the first draft, and the many conversations we had as a team from that point onward, can be seen scribbled all over these pages. For all the talking points that follow each of those scribbles, the one common theme was this: in considering the social and ethical dimensions of our work we, the scientists, are just as much the ones with the knowledge and skills gaps as the people we feel we must ‘openly and transparently’ communicate with. But almost always, we frame it the other way. We, the scientific proponents who understand this mystical and powerful technology, shall inform you, the uninformed other’—be that the public, a specific community, a governing body, whatever—about how our fabulous, futuristic technology works, its pros and cons, and ultimately, why we should be trusted. ​ If we look closer at the scribbles painted across these pages (and indeed the wide breadth of research in this space), we will realise that it is also us scientists who need to learn and adapt, and not only the ‘other’.​

What do we know about how others in the industry are tackling this issue? Could we potentially learn from or collaborate with them? (Read more about this on page 60).

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What does the literature actually say? Moreover, why is there a culture within science of rigorous citing regarding the technical details, but virtually no practice of looking to the literature for the social and/or ethical complexities of the project?

For example, a study1 interviewing 4,593 Australians about their hesitancy around synbio innovations showed three dramatically more nuanced and complex issues driving GMO hesitancy and fear; including:​ 1.

2.

3.

How focusing on technology alone diverts attention away from the root issues of the problem attempting to be solved​ The linking of previous governance failures and the role of public trust in supporting new innovations​ Unease about how we manage unintended consequences in the face of scientific uncertainty​

There is a stigma surrounding the use of genetically modified organisms, especially when used to create compounds that are used in consumer products, creating concerns in safety and a bias towards natural products. Metabolic engineering of cyanobacteria to produce terpenes will likely face the same stigma, which could prompt a social outcry. Through open communication and transparency with stakeholders, we aim to overcome this issue. Not only will the terpene products produced by our methods be identical to the natural equivalents, the production and extraction processes proposed are far more sustainable and environmentally friendly. ​

As synthetic biologists, we are likely fatigued by this ethical consideration. And so often, we point its solving to “open and transparent communication”. ​ ​Synbio social scientists have said2 it’s really important for us to start tackling ideas of anticipation and use much more explicitly, instead of thinking the social dimensions of our work need only focus on the really big, philosophical questions around playing God and controlling nature (questions which, ultimately, will never have a final, tangible ‘answer’).

Of course, GMO acceptance is a hugely important (and fraught) goal. But when it is framed as the primary goal of the social dimensions of every synbio project, it’s akin to governments saying they need more money to make their countries better.

Obviously, money is needed. But why, specifically?

How will that money be used? And by who? And who elected you as our government anyway? And what about the time you promised that exact same thing before, but then it blew up in our faces? ​

As designer Jessye Grundlingh mentioned on page 67, “Part of what you learn at design school is to question the brief you are given… Your client might ask you do design A to solve B, but part of my job as a designer is to ask, is A even a solution to B? Is B the right problem to solve in the first place?”

As the biotechnology field grows, it will begin to incorporate more and more ‘general’ industries, including areas such as pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Such stakeholders could be impacted by the development of a protein compartmentalisation platform.The introduction of our platform will facilitate more efficient sustainable products into the bioeconomy. The key stakeholders impacted by our proposed solution include: our industry partner, Bondi Bio, the consumers of terpenederived products, current manufacturers of terpene products and the broader bioeconomy.​

As design is the interface between science and society3, designers would be key in helping to map out who these stakeholders might be and how they may be considered. Without doing so, science students can fall into the convention of writing pretty superficial considerations of the ‘obvious’ stakeholders, and really hone in on an economic focus. But if the problem we are trying to tackle is more sustainable practices, shouldn’t we consider other types of stakeholders in this space? (Read more about this on page 44).​

Our students seem to have understood ‘social considerations’ to mean, “What is the justification or benefit of your project for society”. This leads to essentially just a repackaged description of the introductory part of their project, instead of what a social dimension response should be: a researched account of the problem they are trying to solve.​

We know that it would be a mammoth technical economic analysis to determine the right metrics to make this claim, but does that give us the liberty to make these sort of claims? (Read more about this on page 58).​

How will scientists do that when we have virtually no training in scenario visualisation or speculation? This is where design futuring/speculative design research would be really useful! (Read more about this on page 18).

​ Interestingly, when we looked through the other teams at the 2021 ASC event’s ethical and social considerations statements, they had all done a very similar thing…

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And so, together we wrote a new social and ethical dimensions statement collaboratively as a team of scientists and biodesigners. It is by no means perfect and could certainly be improved and iterated based on those scribbles on the previous pages. But what we are most proud of is that we decided to incorporate two additional and specific aims into our overall project in order to actually tackle our social and ethical dimensions statement.

The team’s revised statement: Ethicial and social dimensions statement

As science students who are investigating a highly niche research question and design students who are unfamiliar with synbio, we do not yet have a genuine understanding of the ethical and social considerations of this work (beyond the legal regulations of conducting GMO lab work). ​ This project aims to contribute towards realising the more sustainable production of terpenoids within a possible future bioeconomy. However, we have not explored the ramifications of such a future. Therefore, we aim to gain a better understanding of this aspect of our research through cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Given that our research could be used to create compounds that are used in consumer products (pharmaceuticals and cosmetics), we recognise that the cultural significance and beliefs surrounding the concepts of GMOs and ‘naturalness’ are important to explore; both from the perspective of proponents of the technology and diverse publics. ​ Many stakeholders might be affected by this work: the consumers of terpenederived products, current manufacturers of terpene products and the broader bioeconomy, who could all adopt our protein compartment platform. Less obvious stakeholders could exist, too. For example, the anthropogenic use of terpenes has existed long before industrialised biotechnology. Therefore, this work could impact unintended groups, such as Indigenous peoples.​

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Additional biodesign aims 1.

Explore, contextualise, and critique possible outcomes

2.

Visualisation of of our synbio-design student collaboration

The design students will lead monthly, iterative explorations into possible futures involving encapsulin-engineered cyanobacteria and their cultural significance. We will use KJ Brainstorming method: a cycle of action (brainstorming) and reflection (theme raising). KJ brainstorming provides a useful structure when working in an interdisciplinary team, allowing the team to collaboratively connect and prioritise ideas (using activities including but not limited to Crazy 8’s, What If’s, and How Might We’s).

We aim to gain new skills and knowledge from design and science disciplines, respectively, that would not be possible without a collaboration of this duration.

Throughout this six-month endeavor, we will document and visually communicate the process of two-way knowledge sharing to make interdisciplinary work more accessible and less polarising. This will serve as a guide for future design and science collaborations including cross-disciplinary tools, outcomes, lessons learnt, and a glossary.

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A guide to successful collaboration

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Written by Lucy Slip and Christian White

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Contributors and sponsors

Henrico Adrian I am currently a fourth-year undergraduate pursuing a Bachelor of Biotechnology majoring in Medical Biotechnology. My passion for science grew in high school and inspired me to pursue higher education in the field of biology. I joined UTS’ ASC team to expand my scientific horizons and to experience what it’s like to collaboratively work on a research project, and it was an absolute blast! The unexpected twists and turns of Sydney’s COVID-19 lockdown only made the process more interesting and engaging for me, and the experience of creating SYNTHESIS will be something I remember for the rest of my professional career.

Caitlin Sives

Lucy Slip

I am a final year research student in the Master of Philosophy in Medical Biotechnology. I grew up on Darkinjung land (Central Coast, New South Wales) and went to a performing arts high school for dance. Being a competitive dancer for 15 years, I knew that once I graduated high school it was not going to be a viable career for me. Fortunately, I was inspired by my biology teacher to pursue science, and the emerging field of biotechnology sounded exciting to me. I became a member of the UTS ASC team to gain research experience, but SYNTHESIS taught me how break away from traditional approaches and communicate my science in a unique way. Moreover, as an outcome of the connections and inspiration I gained during the ASC, I have since pursued an honours research project focused on engineering protein nanocompartments for nanobiotechnology.

I am currently in my third year of study in a Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication. I grew up on Wallumettagal land (Cheltenham, Sydney) and was interested in art and biology throughout high school with a particular love for illustration. I am always looking for ways to combine these two interests in my practice and so when offered the chance to join the ASC team and contribute to the Biodesign aspects of the project - I jumped at the opportunity! I am very passionate about the environment and sustainable design, and believe that collaboration and the use of design-thinking methods can bring about more well-rounded solutions for better futures. Initially, I joined the ASC team to learn a bit more about the emerging practice of Biodesign, but it ended up growing into a far more enriching and rewarding experience than any of us had imagined.

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Emily Venga I am in my final year of Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering with a background in Medical Science majoring in Medical Microbiology.

Biology was always my favourite subject in high school, soon after I started my bachelor’s degree I befriended engineers, a subject I knew nothing about. I realised soon after that my passion for science went beyond the traditional sciences and I began to focus my attention on technology and engineering. When I joined UTS, I decided to participate in more activities related to my degree to gain experience and an understanding of my potential future career. The ASC offered me exactly that. Working with different scientists and designers was a unique, challenging, and ultimately, a rewarding experience, of which I feel fortunate to have been a part of.

Christian White I am currently in my first year of a Master of Science majoring in Biomedical Engineering. My passion for science stems from its ability to change the world! I was part of the UTS ASC team because I knew it would an awesome opportunity to learn more about the fast-growing field of synthetic biology, and its potential to innovate technologies that benefit society. I was also really intrigued by the proposed use of encapsulin protein nanocompartments to enhance biomanufacturing processes.

Initially, I didn’t quite understand the point of scientists collaborating with designers, but not only have I gained a couple of mates, I’ve also readjusted my perspectives, and now truly see the value derived from such interdisciplinary work.

The editors would like to thank the sponsors of the inaugural issue of SYNTHESIS magazine: The ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology (CoESB) is at the forefront of Australian synthetic biology, and aims to engineer microorganisms into biofactories to help create sustainable solutions to realworld problems.

The ARC Research Hub for Integrated Devices for End-user Analysis at Lowlevels (IDEAL) aims to innovate new technologies that enable Australian industries to develop analytical devices with enhanced detection capabilities but are also cheap, portable, rapid and adaptable.

SYNTHESIS was partially supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council (ARC) CoESB (CE200100029); and the ARC IDEAL Hub (IH150100028). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or ARC.

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Glossary Aboriginal Australian: A self-identified belonging to an Indigenous group based on biological ancestry and the recognition

by Elders (or other persons with traditional authority) of that group.

There is great diversity within Aboriginal Australian culture, with over 250 different language groups spread across the nation.

Aboriginal Australians are the oldest continuous, living culture in the world.

Australasian Synbio Challenge (ASC): A new competition that aims to grow the synbio community in Australia and its neighbours. Like iGEM, teams of multidisciplinary students design, build, and test a biological concept intended to solve realworld problems. The entrepreneurial elements to the Challenge, which includes pitching the idea to investors, encourages the creation of “bio-innovators” to foster the growth of the synbio industry.

Bidiagal*: A group of First Nations (Aboriginal) people whose lands are located within the Greater Sydney region of Australia and on which the University’s Botany Facility is located. They are acknowledged as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.

Bioeconomy: The economic activity that utilises biomass, facilitated by biotechnology, to produce goods and services.

Biodesign: a diverse and multidisciplinary practice integrating biological processes into design and architecture. Here, neither design nor science is more superior; the design intention cannot be tacked on as an afterthought and, equally, the science cannot be founded on false assumptions. Biodesign often incorporates or investigates biotechnologies from a sociotechnical perspective, focusing on their use and misuse in diverse societies.

Bioplastics: Materials made into alternatives to conventional petrochemical-based plastics using renewable resources which can be recycled or broken down via biological processes.

Biotechnology: A type of technology or system for performing functions or making products that, at its core functioning, requires processes of biological action. This can range from genetic engineering of organisms to solar panels used to convert sunlight into electricity.

Boorooberongal*: A group of First Nations (Aboriginal) people whose lands are located within the Greater Sydney region of Australia and on which the University’s Western Sydney research facility is located. They are acknowledged as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.

Co-design: A design approach that aims to incorporate as many stakeholders in the design of a product or process as possible.

Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO): Australia’s national science agency, encouraging and facilitating the application of scientific research to benefit industries.

Cultural law: Also called traditional law (or lore), this refers to the common features of acceptable and unacceptable behavior in Aboriginal communities. Despite the complex Aboriginal systems of law that were in place before 1788, England declared Australia terra nullius- not inhabited by peoples with settled laws or customs.

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Design-Build-Test-Learn cycle: A principle used in science and engineering when creating a product/service. The recursive nature of the cycle allows for continuous iteration until a desired outcome is achieved. ign s e D tion c A form of fictional writing used to contextualise, evolve, or explore a speculative design prototype with a strong focus on character, dialogue, plot, narrative, and use in a specific sociotechnical regime. The term was coined by science fiction author, Bruce Sterling. It differs from science fiction in that it has much deeper design methodologies, intentions, and practicalities built into it. Science fiction, on the other hand, can get away with being much more to do with the magical and whimsical.

Design futuring: A design practice which aims to explore possible, preferable, or avoidable futures to make emerging ideas or technologies more tangible and less overtly utopian or dystopian. Methods involved might include worldbuilding, scenario visualisation, and development of prototypes that only make sense in sociotechnical regimes different to ones existing today. It strives to separate itself from the conventional, highly unoriginal ways of thinking about the future that have dominated futurism narratives.

Divergent thinking: A method of critical thinking that tends to develop in different directions to explore unexpected ideas creatively.

DNA synthesis: A naturally occurring or entirely synthetic process. In nature, cells have their own biological machinery to synthesise and replicate their own DNA. Humans have been able to synthesise DNA using an automated process since the 1970s.

Bioengineering depends heavily on synthetic DNA, which can include short portions of genes (called oligonucleotides) and larger strands of whole synthetic genes. Today, the cost of DNA synthesis is around 18 cents per DNA letter (called a base pair).

Dharug Nation: It is generally understood that the Dharug Nation includes the Aboriginal groups and lands from the inland area of Parramatta to the Blue Mountains in the Greater Sydney region of Australia.

Elder: A person with sufficient life experience and understanding of traditions, cultural protocols and laws, and knowledge, belonging to a particular First Nations community. Elders often provide teachings and play key roles in knowledge sharing and decision making, and overseeing cultural law.

Emerging technologies: Technologies yet to be developed and/or integrated into society. They can be new or in existence but undergoing a reinvention or shift. They are often uncertain, positioned as offering a prominent impact on society, and might seem obscure or unrealistic.

Eora Nation: At the time of colonisation in Australia, local Aboriginal people were (ironically) asked by British invaders where they came from. The Aboriginal people responded, ‘Eora’, meaning ‘here’, or ‘from this place’. The British misunderstood and believed Eora to be their name. Eora is now proudly used by the descendants of those very same people. It is generally understood that the Eora Nation includes the lands and Aborigional groups of the coastal region of Sydney and includes some 29 different Aboriginal groups.

Eora also refers to the name of a common language found in this region.

Ethnographic: Relating to the scientific description of peoples and cultures with their customs, habits, and mutual differences.

First Nations*: Refers to the people whose ancestors lived in a place for thousands of years prior to colonisation (current research suggests this is at least 60,000 years). In Australia, First Nations (also referred to as Indigenous) peoples are made up of two distinct cultural groups, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, of which there are many smaller clan groups, each with their own culture, language, beliefs and practices.

Gadigal*: A group of First Nations (Aboriginal) people whose lands are located within the Greater Sydney region of Australia and on which the University’s City campus, Broadway, and Moore Park facilities are located. They are acknowledged as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.

Gamaygal*: A group of First Nations (Aboriginal) people whose lands are located within the Greater Sydney region of Australia and on which the University’s Botany Facility is located.

They are acknowledged as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.

Greenwashing: Providing misleading information regarding a product and/or service’s environmental and ecological impact, framing it as more beneficial/harmless than it actually is to entice consumers. iGEM: The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) is an organisation that encourages and promotes the growth of the synbio community, particularly through the iGEM Competition, where multidisciplinary teams work to design and create a biological system to solve a problem in the real world.

KJ brainstorming: A method of creative problem solving invented by Jiro Kawakita, intended to support research and development management. This process involves label making and grouping, chart making and verbal and/or written explanation.

Kuku-Yalandji*: A group of First Nations people who are the traditional custodians of a rainforest region of far North Queensland, Australia.

Microbe/microorganism: A microscopic living organism. This can include bacteria, some fungi (such as yeast), and microalgae. Microbes are exceptionally diverse genetically, geographically, physiologically, and evolutionarily. Some microbes are single-celled organisms and others are multicellular. The one common feature is that they are invisible to the naked eye.

Protein: The four molecular building blocks of nature are amino acids (forming proteins), nucleic acids (forming DNA), lipids, and carbohydrates. In molecular biology, the word protein refers to one of these four building blocks of nature. In nature, proteins are encoded by genes.

Synthetic biology: An emerging technology and multidisciplinary field in which new biological parts, devices, and systems are built from or with biological processes. The main engineering componentry in synthetic biology (synbio) are DNA, RNA, and protein. Proponents of synbio aim to solve problems in medicine, manufacturing, and agriculture using this technology.

Technology: Technologies are often envisioned to be things involving computing and electronics, to be new and shiny, to be wonderful or terrifying. But technologies are also things that are a motley of the new and old, or things that have no computing or electronic powers, like the humble candle.

Terpenoids: Also called isoprenoids or terpenes, these are one of the largest classes of natural products known. With over 60,000 terpenoid structures identified, they have been widely used in applications, including traditional medicines, cosmetics, and fragrances.

Wangal: A group of First Nations (Aboriginal) people whose lands are located within the Greater Sydney region of Australia generally to the west of the Gadigal. They are acknowledged as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.

Wicked problem: A social or cultural problem that is essentially unsolvable. One can only strive to make a wicked problem ‘less bad’. Examples of wicked problems in today's society include things like food inequity, financial crises, access to healthcare, wealth disparity, and pollution. This term was coined

by Horst W.J. Rittel, a design theorist and professor of design methodology.

Worldbuilding: A practice which most people might be familiar with through the context of video games, in which the user and the game designers co-build the fictional world in the game space, such as Micecraft. In design, worldbuilding refers to the construction of a sociotechnical regime in which prototypes could exist as usual or normal. It involves the fleshing out of various aspects of a world, for example: the social, political, and philosophical norms and the economic and education systems, on various scales (from the individual to the institutional to the societal).

*Like every group, Indigenous Australians are not a monolithic entity with the same thoughts and preferences. It is important to find out how a particular Indigenous person might prefer to have their identity addressed, rather than making assumptions. For example, some Aboriginal Australians feel the word ‘Aboriginal’ is too vague, and instead prefer to be called by their specific clan name.

Sociotechnical regimes: The cultural and physical landscape in which a particular object or technology makes sense.

A person within a particular sociotechnical regime will recognise the object, understand how to use it, be able to use it, and possibly have a personal connection to the object, such as attached memories or sentiments.

Speculative design: A design practice that is concerned with future designs of a critical nature. Instead of proposing commercially-relevant designs of today, speculative designs aim to uncover and unpack future implications of emerging technologies and societies. The term was popularised by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby.

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Bibliography Acknowledgement of Country

Tweet by @AmyThunig. (2020, June 30). "If you’re aiming to empower & not exploit an Indigenous community, then ask yourself...

Did the community ask for this? Does my work empower the community to do the work themselves (through training/upskilling)?

Is there a change over plan that sees you LEAVE & the work continue? Whether you’re a clothing label or a researcher, the above checklist applies. It’s white saviour, mission manager mindset to think that you and only you can help our stories & voices be told. If you legitimately want to contribute & nor exploit, ask yourself the above questions."

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Tweet by @cienan_m. (2022, Jan 13). "No I will not give you my knowledge for your university project for free #blackfullatwitter."

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Tweet by @AmyThunig. (2021, June 24). "We don’t really have a budget, but, you should consider that you doing this helps your community - and isn’t that what you people are all about? Also, it’s good exposure!"

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Message from the editors

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Enhancing nature as a technology: Can we take inspiration from one part of nature and put it someplace else?

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atlasofthefuture.org/project/faber-futures/

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A Feldman. (2019). Synthetic Biology Company Ginkgo Bioworks Tops $4 Billion Valuation, Pushing Its Ph.D. Founders’ Stakes To Some $250 Million Each.

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I Boyton & co. (2021). Characterizing the Dynamic Disassembly/Reassembly Mechanisms of Encapsulin Protein Nanocages.

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D Diaz & co. (2021). Bioengineering a Light-Responsive Encapsulin Nanoreactor: A Potential Tool for In Vitro Photodynamic Therapy.

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How does imagining possible futures help progress science?

K Dahlgren & co. (2020). Digital Energy Futures: Review of Industry Trends, Visions and Scenarios for the Home.

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D Edgerton (2006). The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900.

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T Lee & J George. (Under review). Worldbuilding with Synthetic Biology.

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J Watson. (2019). Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism.

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Making waves at the edge of synthetic biology

P Gray & co. (2018) Synthetic Biology in Australia: An Outlook to 2030.

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4

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5

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EJ Dufourc. (2008). Sterols and Membrane Dynamics.

Scents of this land: Learnings from Australia’s

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biotechnologists

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t sr

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3

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Z Zebec & co. (2016). Efficient CRISPR-Mediated Post-Transcriptional Gene Silencing in a Hyperthermophilic Archaeon Using Multiplexed crRNA Expression.

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Questioning our perceptions of sustainability

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Considering social dimensions needs active strategies

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