Forbes reports on Codon Devices, a new startup that plans to offer tools to make gene manipulation as intuitive as manipulating text with a word processor or a photo with Photoshop.
If this works, it’s one more step towards what Freeman Dyson likes to call “the domestication of biotechnology.” (I loved the analogy he made when he spoke at OScon last year. He referred to the PC revolution as “the domestication of computers,” and looked forward to an era when amateur flower and animal breeders could use similarly “domesticated” genetic engineering tools to improve their work in the same way people now use computers in the home.) Technology moves from the labs to the startup to the ordinary user. Seems far out to project that for biotech, which currently has an aura not only of difficulty but also of risk, but I do think it will eventually happen.
BTW, Drew Endy, who spoke at ETech earlier this year about his work on building a registry of re-usable genetic components, is one of the co-founders of Codon Devices.