From creators to engineers Throughout history, the ideas about "what life really is" and how it works underwent several changes. Starting with metaphysical and spiritual concepts, the study of living systems lead to the chemical and biological knowledge concepts science was able to establish. By uncovering the mechanisms of DNA, scientists themselves finally changed their role from describing to analysing to finally engineering living systems. Modern genetic engineers aim at building living systems, like true engineers build machines. The desire to have genetic circuits, that can be assembled like software code and implemented within a cell, creates the need for biological standards. Xenobiology - life, as we don’t know it At present, life uses standards that were established by natural evolution, such as the chemical structure of the DNA, the genetic code, or the canonical 20 amino acids found in all living beings. Most bioengineers use the standards that nature provides, but while these standards are ready to use, they also cause a number of problems for the engineers. Xenobiologists try to go a different path by asking: could there be a form of life with different biochemical standards? If so, which biochemistry could do the same job? Why always DNA, what about TNA, HNA, GNA? Why not coding information with other bases? Why only use the 20 canonical amino acids? Why not using another genetic code? The attempt to answer these questions, is like exploring an yet unknown territory. We decided to call it Xenobiology, as it is a form of biology that has not yet been explored but seems to hold a number of interesting opportunities, and want to start our exploration in Genova, the city where Christopher Columbus was born. Time to talk. The XB1 conference will gather life-scientists that have already done their first steps in Xenobiology. The conference will give participants the opportunity to exchange experiences already made and draw first maps of the unknown biological territory. Furthermore, this exchange may lead to decisions, on which directions the research in this field should take in the near future. More than just chemistry Creating living systems outside the chemistry that nature determined is audacious. Scientists are aware of the fact that these steps could affect our future in several ways. Therefore, a conference on Xenobiology must not only cover technical issues but also has to consider and seriously discuss its potential social, ethical and economic ramifications. The organizers emphasize these issues and want the conference to work as an open interface between scientists engaged in xenobiological activities and the general public. The conference will be open to press representatives as well as interested lay audience. A press corner will help to establish interviews and coverage. Some of the lectures will also be publicly available through the website. In Detail - What Xenobiologists do: - XNA All natural living systems store and process their information within DNA/RNA molecules. These molecules consist of a sugar backbone and the genetic information itself. XNA is the attempt to change parts of this chemistry and replace them with other elements. So far, scientists succeeded in changing the backbone of DNA and establish a functional XNA storage system. This included also a redesign of the polymerase machinery, the molecular mechanic, that is needed to read and write with this new storage system. - Expanding the genetic alphabet Natural DNA encodes information with four Bases (Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, Tymine). Xenobiologists are currently trying to design DNA molecules that incorporate more than just four bases. - Coding new amino acids Natural DNA is a coding system for 20 amino acids, the so-called "canonical amino acids" The proteins we know are made out of these 20 acids. Theoretically, there is space within the DNA coding system for some additional amino acids. Assigning genetic code to new types of amino acids would widen the opportunities of cells to create yet impossible, unknown biological matter. - Building a genetic firewall Xenobiology can also be used as a tool to make molecular biology safer. In future, engineering with biology could be done within an alternative biological "operating system" - thus preventing intermixing or unintended gene transfer. Speakers: Arren Bar-Even Tel Aviv, Israel www.weizmann.ac.il/plants/Milo Patrice Binder Institut National de la Santé et la Recherche Médicale, France biologie-synthese.cnam.fr/patrice-binder-581533.kjsp Nediljko Budisa Technical University of Berlin, Germany www.biocat.tu-berlin.de Abhishek Chatterjee Boston College www.bc.edu/schools/cas/chemistry/faculty/chatterjee.html Georges N. Cohen Pasteur Institute, France Piet Herdewijn Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium iSSB, University of Evry & Genopole, France www.kuleuven.be/research/researchdatabase/researchteam/50000720.htm Ichiro Hirao Riken Institute, Japan www.riken.jp/en/research/labs/clst/struct_synth_biol/bio_funct_mol_dev/synth_mol_biol Phil Holliger MRC Cambridge www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/group-leaders/h-to-m/philipp-holliger/ Clyde Allen Hutchison III John Craig Venter Institute, USA en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_A._Hutchison_III Farren Isaacs Yale University, USA isaacs.commons.yale.edu Pierre-Alexandre Kaminski Pasteur Institute, France www.researchgate.net/profile/Pierre_Kaminski Chang Liu University of California, Irvine, USA liulab.com Philippe Marlière Scientist of Fortune, Luxembourg iSSB, University of Evry and Genopole, France Didier Mazel Pasteur Institute, France openwetware.org/wiki/Mazel Rupert Mutzel Free University of Berlin, Germany www.bcp.fu-berlin.de/en/biologie/arbeitsgruppen/mikrobiologie/ag_mutzel Sven Panke Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich, Switzerland www.bsse.ethz.ch Katia Pauwels Scientific Institute of Public Health, Belgium www.biosafety.be Richard Pell Center for PostNatural History, United States. www.postnatural.org Vitor Pinheiro University College London, United Kingdom www.ismb.lon.ac.uk/vitor_pinheiro.html Markus Schmidt Biofaction, Austria www.biofaction.com Rene Von Schomberg EC – DG Research & Innovation, European Union. renevonschomberg.wordpress.com Dieter Söll Yale University, USA trna.research.yale.edu Tom Ward University of Basel, Switzerland www.chemie.unibas.ch/~ward Jeffrey Wong Hong Kong University, China www.symplecticbiology.org/editorial-board/jeffrey-tze-fei-wong The XB1-conference will take place from May 6th - 8th, 2014 at the Hotel Savoia, Genova Via Arsenale di Terra 5 16126 Genova, Italy Press Contact: Camillo Meinhart [email protected] ++43 699 19476805