Sunday, November 05, 2006

Yay! This means cyborgs could be genetically engineered to smell like bananas


Technology Review: Bizarre Bacterial Creations: In the news this week, the International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM) at MIT. The MIT team "tosses out wacky applications for its technology: minty-fresh foot fungus or baker's yeast that smells of bananas. But its real goal is the construction of functional biological parts. 'The key idea here is to develop a library of composable parts which we think of in the same way as Lego blocks,' says Tom Knight, an engineer at MIT who cofounded the competition with MIT bioengineer Drew Endy. (Both advise the MIT team.) 'These parts can be assembled into more-complex pieces, which in many cases are functional when inserted into living cells.'"

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