Synthetic Biology: The Next Step Forward for Industrial Biotechnology

Basic research in synthetic biology is rapidly advancing. A Google search for the term “synthetic biology” revealed more than 3 million hits (accessed 15 January 2014). 793 scientific articles indexed with this term are found in the Web of Science database for the year 2013. It can be expected, that applications developed by synthetic biology will be commercialized in the not-so-distant future. However, significant commercial use of “biological principles” in industrial biotechnology already exists. The adaptation of results of synthetic biology by industry will not only depend on their scientific “beauty,” but also on existing economic and environmental constraints and the socio-economic context. In the following chapter, we will give an overview of the economic context of industrial biotechnology, and identify major opportunities for future applications of synthetic biology in industrial processes.