Students, Scientists Build Biological ‘Machines’

RAY SUAREZ:

Now, solving biological problems by engineering living cells. NewsHour correspondent Tom Bearden has this Science Unit report on the emerging field of synthetic biology.

TOM BEARDEN, NewsHour correspondent: More than 800 college kids from all over the world celebrating the end of months of intense work building biological machines. These were the final moments of the 2008 International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition, or IGEM, on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

These young people spent their summer on their home campuses doing something called synthetic biology, a new way to approach solving the world's problems using living organisms. The annual IGEM jamboree gives them the chance to show off all that work through a series of presentations.

The team from Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium, invented Dr. Coli.

STUDENT:

This is a self-regulating drug delivery system. It senses inflammation factors on a certain place in the body of the patient, and it reacts by producing the appropriate amount of drugs on that place. When the patient isn't ill anymore, Dr. Coli will eliminate himself out of the body.

TOM BEARDEN:

The Duke team focused on building bacteria to attack plastic waste in landfills to make it biodegradable.

Mississippi State worked on breaking down the tough cell walls of woody plants so they can be converted into biofuel.

And Rice University invented "bio-beer." Their goal was to engineer a yeast that would produce resveratrol during the brewing process. Resveratrol is the substance found in red wine that's been shown to greatly extend life in simple organisms.