0:00:01.365,0:00:04.230
A briefcase full of poop changed my life.

0:00:04.810,0:00:06.690
Ten years ago, I was a graduate student

0:00:06.714,0:00:09.388
and I was helping judge[br]a genetic engineering competition

0:00:09.412,0:00:10.633
for undergrads.

0:00:10.657,0:00:14.598
There, I met a British artist and designer[br]named Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg.

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She was wearing the white[br]embroidered polo shirt

0:00:17.027,0:00:18.756
of the University of Cambridge team

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and holding a silver briefcase,

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like the kind that you would imagine[br]is handcuffed to your wrist.

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She gestured over from a quiet corner

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and asked me if I wanted to see something.

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With a sneaky look,[br]she opened up the suitcase,

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and inside were six glorious,[br]multicolored turds.

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The Cambridge team, she explained,

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had spent their summer[br]engineering the bacteria E. coli

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to be able to sense different things[br]in the environment

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and produce a rainbow[br]of different colors in response.

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Arsenic in your drinking water?

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This strain would turn green.

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She and her collaborator,[br]the designer James King,

0:00:51.749,0:00:55.042
worked with the students and imagined[br]the different possible scenarios

0:00:55.066,0:00:56.828
of how you might use these bacteria.

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What if, they asked, you could use them

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as a living probiotic drink[br]and health monitor, all in one?

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You could drink the bacteria[br]and it would live in your gut,

0:01:06.577,0:01:07.868
sensing what's going on,

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and then in response to something,

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it would be able to produce[br]a colored output.

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Holy shit!

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The Cambridge team went on to win

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the International Genetically Engineered[br]Machine competition,

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or iGEM for short.

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And as for me, those turds[br]were a turning point.

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I am a synthetic biologist,

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which is probably a weird term[br]that most people aren't familiar with.

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It definitely sounds like an oxymoron.

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How can biology, something natural,

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be synthetic?

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How can something artificial be alive?

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Synthetic biologists sort of poke holes

0:01:38.727,0:01:43.006
in that boundary that we draw between[br]what is natural and what's technological.

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And every year, iGEM students[br]from all over the world

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spend their summer

0:01:46.942,0:01:50.010
trying to engineer biology[br]to be technology.

0:01:50.034,0:01:52.749
They teach bacteria how to play sudoku,

0:01:52.773,0:01:55.641
they make multicolored spider silk,

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they make self-healing concrete

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and tissue printers[br]and plastic-eating bacteria.

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Up until that moment, though,

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I was a little bit more concerned[br]with a different kind of oxymoron.

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Just plain old genetic engineering.

0:02:08.260,0:02:10.348
The comedian Simon Munnery once wrote

0:02:10.372,0:02:15.264
that genetic engineering is actually[br]insulting to proper engineering.

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Genetic engineering is more like throwing[br]a bunch of concrete and steel in a river

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and if somebody can walk across,[br]you call it a bridge.

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And so synthetic biologists[br]were pretty worried about this,

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and worried that genetic engineering[br]was a little bit more art that science.

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They wanted to turn genetic engineering[br]into a real engineering discipline,

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where we could program cells and write DNA

0:02:37.425,0:02:41.093
the way that engineers write[br]software for computers.

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That day 10 years ago started me on a path[br]that gets me to where I am now.

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Today, I'm the creative director

0:02:47.307,0:02:50.131
at a synthetic biology company[br]called Ginkgo Bioworks.

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"Creative director" is a weird title

0:02:52.178,0:02:54.734
for a biotech company[br]were people try to program life

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the way that we program computers.

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But that day when I met Daisy,

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I learned something about engineering.

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I learned that engineering[br]isn't really just about equations

0:03:03.973,0:03:05.750
and steel and circuits,

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it's actually about people.

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It's something that people do,[br]and it impacts us.

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So in my work,

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I try to open up new spaces[br]for different kinds of engineering.

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How can we ask better questions,

0:03:17.990,0:03:19.721
and can we have better conversations

0:03:19.745,0:03:22.188
about what we want[br]from the future of technology?

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How can we understand the technological

0:03:24.807,0:03:27.664
but also social and political[br]and economic reasons

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that GMOs are so polarizing[br]in our society?

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Can we make GMOs that people love?

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Can we use biology to make technology[br]that's more expansive and regenerative?

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I think it starts by recognizing[br]that we, as synthetic biologists,

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are also shaped by a culture[br]that values "real engineering"

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more than any of the squishy stuff.

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We get so caught up in circuits[br]and what happens inside of computers,

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that we sometimes lose sight of the magic[br]that's happening inside of us.

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There is plenty of shitty[br]technology out there,

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but this was the first time[br]that I imagined poop as technology.

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I began to see that synthetic[br]biology was awesome,

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not because we could turn[br]cells into computers,

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but because we could bring[br]technology to life.

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This was technology that was visceral,

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an unforgettable vision[br]of what the future might hold.

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But importantly, it was also[br]framed as the question

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"Is this the kind of future[br]that we actually want?"

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We've been promised a future of chrome,

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but what if the future is fleshy?

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Science and science fiction

0:04:31.141,0:04:33.728
help us remember[br]that we're made of star stuff.

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But can it also help us remember[br]the wonder and weirdness

0:04:36.450,0:04:38.125
of being made of flesh?

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Biology is us,

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it's our bodies, it's what we eat.

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What happens when biology[br]becomes technology?

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These images are questions,

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and they challenge what we think of[br]as normal and desirable.

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And they also show us[br]that the future is full of choices

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and that we could choose differently.

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What's the future of the body, of beauty?

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If we change the body,[br]will we have new kinds of awareness?

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And will new kinds of awareness[br]of the microbial world

0:05:07.208,0:05:09.106
change the way that we eat?

0:05:09.130,0:05:12.643
The last chapter of my dissertation[br]was all about cheese that I made

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using bacteria that I swabbed[br]from in between my toes.

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I told you that the poop changed my life.

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I worked with the smell artist[br]and researcher Sissel Tolaas

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to explore all of the ways[br]that our bodies and cheese are connected

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through smell and therefore microbes.

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And we created this cheese

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to challenge how we think[br]about the bacteria

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that's part of our lives

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and the bacteria[br]that we work with in the lab.

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We are, indeed, what we eat.

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The intersection of biology and technology

0:05:41.942,0:05:46.029
is more often told as a story[br]of transcending our fleshy realities.

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If you can upload[br]your brain to a computer,

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you don't need to poop anymore after all.

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And that's usually a story[br]that's told as a good thing, right?

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Because computers are clean,[br]and biology is messy.

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Computers make sense and are rational,

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and biology is an unpredictable tangle.

0:06:05.331,0:06:06.721
It kind of follows from there

0:06:06.745,0:06:09.950
that science and technology[br]are supposed to be rational,

0:06:09.974,0:06:11.426
objective

0:06:11.450,0:06:13.403
and pure,

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and it's humans that are a total mess.

0:06:16.407,0:06:18.645
But like synthetic biologists poke holes

0:06:18.669,0:06:21.701
in that line between nature[br]and technology,

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artists, designers and social scientists

0:06:24.225,0:06:28.498
showed me that the lines that we draw[br]between nature, technology and society

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are a little bit softer[br]than we might think.

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They challenge us to reconsider[br]our visions for the future

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and our fantasies[br]about controlling nature.

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They show us how our prejudices,[br]our hopes and our values

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are embedded in science and technology

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through the questions that we ask[br]and the choices that we make.

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They make visible the ways[br]that science and technology are human

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and therefore political.

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What does it mean for us[br]to be able to control life

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for our own purposes?

0:06:56.363,0:06:58.212
The artists Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr

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made a project[br]called "Victimless Leather,"

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where they engineered[br]a tiny leather jacket

0:07:03.307,0:07:04.776
out of mouse cells.

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Is this jacket alive?

0:07:07.014,0:07:10.291
What does it take to grow it[br]and keep it this way?

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Is it really victimless?

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And what does it mean[br]for something to be victimless?

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The choices that we make

0:07:16.260,0:07:19.760
in what we show and what we hide[br]in our stories of progress,

0:07:19.784,0:07:23.487
are often political choices[br]that have real consequences.

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How will genetic technologies[br]shape the way that we understand ourselves

0:07:27.788,0:07:29.217
and define our bodies?

0:07:29.241,0:07:31.839
The artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg[br]made these faces

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based on DNA sequences[br]she extracted from sidewalk litter,

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forcing us to ask questions[br]about genetic privacy,

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but also how and whether[br]DNA can really define us.

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How will we fight against[br]and cope with climate change?

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Will we change the way[br]that we make everything,

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using biological materials[br]that can grow and decay alongside us?

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Will we change our own bodies?

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Or nature itself?

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Or can we change the system[br]that keeps reinforcing those boundaries

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between science, society,[br]nature and technology?

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Relationships that today keep us[br]locked in these unsustainable patterns.

0:08:07.585,0:08:09.783
How we understand and respond to crises

0:08:09.807,0:08:12.847
that are natural, technical[br]and social all at once,

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from coronavirus to climate change,

0:08:15.140,0:08:16.847
is deeply political,

0:08:16.871,0:08:19.577
and science never happens in a vacuum.

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Let's go back in time

0:08:21.403,0:08:23.932
to when the first European settlers[br]arrived in Hawaii.

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They eventually brought their cattle[br]and their scientists with them.

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The cattle roamed the hillsides,

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trampling and changing[br]the ecosystems as they went.

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The scientists catalogued the species[br]that they found there,

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often taking the last specimen[br]before they went extinct.

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This is the Maui hau kuahiwi,

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or the Hibiscadelphus wilderianus,

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so named by Gerrit Wilder in 1910.

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By 1912, it was extinct.

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I found this specimen[br]in the Harvard University Herbarium,

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where it's housed with five million[br]other specimens from all over the world.

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I wanted to take a piece[br]of science's past,

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tied up as it was with colonialism,

0:09:02.320,0:09:03.712
and all of the embedded ideas

0:09:03.736,0:09:07.807
of the way that nature and science[br]and society should work together,

0:09:07.831,0:09:10.664
and ask questions about science's future.

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Working with an awesome team at Ginkgo,

0:09:13.038,0:09:14.982
and others at UC Santa Cruz,

0:09:15.006,0:09:17.609
we were able to extract[br]a little bit of the DNA

0:09:17.633,0:09:20.133
from a tiny sliver of this plant specimen

0:09:20.157,0:09:22.268
and to sequence the DNA inside.

0:09:22.292,0:09:25.439
And then resynthesize a possible version

0:09:25.463,0:09:28.629
of the genes that made[br]the smell of the plant.

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By inserting those genes into yeast,

0:09:31.050,0:09:33.563
we could produce little bits of that smell

0:09:33.587,0:09:35.325
and be able to, maybe, smell

0:09:35.349,0:09:37.658
a little bit of something[br]that's lost forever.

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Working again with Daisy[br]and Sissel Tolaas,

0:09:39.729,0:09:42.218
my collaborator on the cheese project,

0:09:42.242,0:09:46.276
we reconstructed and composed[br]a new smell of that flower,

0:09:46.300,0:09:49.331
and created an installation[br]where people could experience it,

0:09:49.355,0:09:52.751
to be part of this natural history[br]and synthetic future.

0:09:54.482,0:09:56.530
Ten years ago, I was a synthetic biologist

0:09:56.554,0:09:59.529
worried that genetic engineering[br]was more art than science

0:09:59.553,0:10:01.220
and that people were too messy

0:10:01.244,0:10:03.244
and biology was too complicated.

0:10:03.641,0:10:06.601
Now I use genetic engineering as art

0:10:06.625,0:10:09.645
to explore all the different ways[br]that we are entangled together

0:10:09.669,0:10:11.899
and imagine different possible futures.

0:10:11.923,0:10:13.622
A fleshy future

0:10:13.646,0:10:16.942
is one that does recognize[br]all those interconnections

0:10:16.966,0:10:19.624
and the human realities of technology.

0:10:19.927,0:10:23.439
But it also recognizes[br]the incredible power of biology,

0:10:23.463,0:10:25.408
its resilience and sustainability,

0:10:25.432,0:10:28.431
its ability to heal and grow and adapt.

0:10:28.455,0:10:30.418
Values that are so necessary

0:10:30.442,0:10:33.037
for the visions of the futures[br]that we can have today.

0:10:33.061,0:10:35.371
Technology will shape that future,

0:10:35.395,0:10:37.395
but humans make technology.

0:10:37.696,0:10:40.309
How we decide what that future will be

0:10:40.333,0:10:41.746
is up to all of us.

0:10:42.556,0:10:43.738
Thank you.