Hard Truths for Synthetic Bio

As with most things futuristic, synthetic biology is going to be harder than most people think:

Even if the function of each part is known, the parts may not work as expected when put together, says Keasling. Synthetic biologists are often caught in a laborious process of trial-and-error, unlike the more predictable design procedures found in other modern engineering disciplines.

“We are still like the Wright Brothers, putting pieces of wood and paper together,” says Luis Serrano, a systems biologist at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, Spain. “You fly one thing and it crashes. You try another thing and maybe it flies a bit better.”

["Five Hard Truths for Synthetic Biology" - News at Nature]