Synthetic biologists attempt to apply engineering principles to biological systems. This involves treating organisms as “chassis” – neutral frames into which synthetic constructs can be inserted, rather than living entities with distinctive features. Here we focus on a particularly charismatic organism – Saccharomyces cerevisiae (brewer's yeast) – and the attempt to make a synthetic version of its genome. We argue that the “personality” of the yeast and the affective relationship scientists (and others) have to it, challenges the “organism agnosticism” of synthetic biology. This leads us to ask whether synthetic biologists have straightforwardly exploitative relationships to the organisms they work on. We connect this “feeling for the (micro)organism” to the activity of engineering whole genomes, rather than discrete genetic parts. We argue that this connection is significant because we are likely to see an escalation in attempts to synthesize complete genomes in the future, including the human genome.

中文翻译：

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对（微）生物体的感觉？酵母性、生物不可知论和全基因组合成

合成生物学家试图将工程原理应用于生物系统。这涉及将生物体视为“底盘”——可以插入合成结构的中性框架，而不是具有独特特征的生物体。在这里，我们关注一种特别有魅力的生物——酿酒酵母（啤酒酵母）——以及对其基因组进行合成版本的尝试。我们认为酵母的“个性”以及科学家（和其他人）对其的情感关系挑战了合成生物学的“有机体不可知论”。这使我们不禁要问，合成生物学家是否与他们研究的生物体有着直接的剥削关系。我们将这种“对（微生物）有机体的感觉”与工程全基因组的活动联系起来，而不是离散的遗传部分。