Policing ourselves

摘要

There are many ways of measuring the importance of a scientific discipline, and most would lead you to dismiss synthetic biology as a pretty marginal affair. It has yet to produce a profusion of great papers, to underpin vibrant new businesses, to generate stereotypes in the public imagination, to benefit from vast flows of grant money, or to boast a substantial body of practitioners united in their vision for their field. And a large element of the community can fit into a small lecture theatre, as it did last week at the Synthetic Biology 2.0 conference at the University of California, Berkeley (see page 388).