Ginkgo Bioworks, Biology by Design
We begin with the very first statement on the Ginkgo Bioworks website. THEY design biology. Something goes wrong in a biological system? They, like auto mechanics, fix what went wrong.
Once again, The Cynefin method of thinking leads us to the fundamental flaw.
Simple, Complicated and Complex.
Biology is complex. Biotechnology is complicated. Some laboratory techniques are kind of simple.
Biology is the most advanced manufacturing technology on the planet. We program cells to make everything from food to materials to therapeutics.
There it is. Biology is not a manufacturing technology. It is a branch of science. We must return to our basic understanding of how we perceive the world.
Science is a system of knowledge. It is concerned with the physical world and its phenomena. It entails unbiased observations and systematic experimentation. In general, a science involves a pursuit of knowledge covering general truths or the operations of fundamental laws.
Science can be divided into different branches. The physical sciences study the inorganic world and comprise the fields of astronomy, physics, chemistry, and the Earth sciences. The biological sciences such as biology and medicine study the organic world of life and its processes. Social sciences like anthropology and economics study the social and cultural aspects of human behavior.
Science is a system of knowledge. We have to apply our version of The Scientific Method in order to advance our knowledge. We used to think the Four Humors regulated our health. We have changed our minds on that one. We have added more and more understanding to the point where we know what we are made of and to a small degree, how it happens. DNA codes for chains of amino acids that form proteins. The proteins do the work.
What then makes Ginkgo Bioworks different among the herd of biotechnologies? They offer a variety of services and technologies. Each is there to help the customer speed through their research without the need to establish their own laboratories. Let's look at one offering.
Whether you’re looking to discover and synthesize a novel functional protein, optimize your protein production, or enhance processes to scale up your protein manufacturing, Ginkgo’s best-in-class capabilities empower your protein R&D.
Is Ginkgo a manufacturing organization? Do they have decades of experience successfully developing and executing upstream and downstream manufacturing processes?
No matter what you want to do, Ginkgo claims they can do it all. Fermentation, strain optimization, scale up your manufacturing processes... they got you covered.
How does this compare to the CCS concept of The Empowered Laboratory? Ginkgo will help you develop the shape of your molecules. They will help you make them and manufacture them. The Empowered Laboratory work force will challenge your assumptions. They will test your theory. They will employ unbiased observations and systematic experimentation.
To be fair and honest, Ginkgo is real. It exists and has put its money where its mouth is. They make their claims and they invite you to use their services. On the downside, they are in business to make money. They do not care if your drug stands a chance. They are taking your money to do what you want done. While your success is their success, they have also taken the low road of shielding themselves from the standard biotechnology pitfalls of research. Some things just don't pan out. Ginkgo will take that journey with you but it is you who ultimately stands alone at the end of the wrong path. Ginkgo simply cashes your checks and goes back to their business.
George F. Merck famously said: "We try to remember that medicine is for the patient. We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow, and if we have remembered that, they have never failed to appear. The better we have remembered it, the larger they have been."
I don't make the claim that Ginkgo Bioworks doesn't care about the medicine or the patient. I will admit that they are indeed about the technology. They are certainly better at many aspects of biotechnology than most new companies. A new company, or a new group within an established company, has to develop. Ginkgo will put you ahead of the curve in getting started. Ginkgo is there to help you advance your technology, not your science.
If you think of science as the unbiased observations and systematic experimentation employed in the pursuit of knowledge covering general truths or the operations of fundamental laws... Ginkgo Bioworks is not concerned. Science would be up to the customer of Ginkgo. Once you, the customer, has got your science right the profits will come. Ginkgo will assist you in maximizing your profits by helping you design the physical biological products you seek.
What is missing? Science. We do not design biology, we study biology. With our current understanding we can attempt to make interventions that disrupt the path our biology has put us on. If we have cancer, we can attempt to stop the cells from dividing out of control. If we have protein imbalances that cause disease, we can make antibodies to fight excessive protein concentrations. But what we are fighting is not well understood. By employing the scientific method, we can get to a greater understanding. We can see how our behaviors involving diet and exercise effect our health.
As the pharmaceutical industry strays further and further away from science and focuses more and more on single protein interventions (biopharmaceuticals) we can expect little value to come from them.
So they've arranged to imitate things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas—he's the controller—and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.
