"Synthetic biology is a technology that shifts the manufacturing base away from petroleum dependence toward biomass and cell factories. It will become the driving force that transforms the operating system (OS) of industry and society, including raw materials, processes, and supply chain systems."
Akihiko Kondo, Professor Emeritus at Kobe University and one of Japan's leading authorities in synthetic biology, made this statement in a recent written interview with The Seoul Economic Daily. He defined synthetic biology not merely as a biotechnology but as a foundational technology that will transform production methods across industries, including pharmaceuticals, materials, food, and energy.
Kondo is a researcher who has continuously been involved in founding Japanese synthetic biology startups such as Synplogen, Bio Palette, and Bacchus Bio Innovation. At Kobe University, he has researched biofuels, chemical raw materials, and biodegradable plastics production using biomass, as well as synthetic biology and bio foundries. He currently serves as President and CEO of Bacchus Bio Innovation.
Kondo's focus on synthetic biology began during a period when he was immersed in research on producing substances through microbial fermentation. At that time, bio-production relied heavily on the experience and intuition of skilled researchers, and there were limits to stably achieving high-efficiency production. "Past research relied largely on the experience and intuition of experts, and I felt its limits," he explained. "I discovered the potential of synthetic biology, which designs metabolic pathways through computational science and synthetically creates biological functions."
Behind this lay the acceleration and cost reduction of genome analysis technology. As biological data accumulated explosively, it became possible to go beyond observing and improving life phenomena to calculating and designing desired functions. Kondo predicted that as this technology advances, humanity will be able to produce the various substances it needs from biomass, a renewable resource, rather than from fossil resources. "Synthetic biology will become the foundation for the transition to a sustainable society," he stressed.
Synthetic biology is already being rapidly applied in new drug development and gene therapy. However, Kondo picked "bio-based materials" as the industry that will undergo the greatest change over the next decade. He projects that new materials based on renewable resources will emerge one after another through synthetic biology technology, and the pace of industrialization will accelerate. "Amid the global trends of de-plasticization and carbon neutrality, a paradigm shift will occur in which the very foundation of manufacturing is transformed into a bio-based one," he said.
Data accumulation is the source that accelerates the progress of synthetic biology technology. "Going forward, autonomous research and development platforms will become mainstream, in which artificial intelligence (AI) designs, robots automatically conduct experiments, and AI again analyzes the resulting data," Kondo predicted. In this context, the competitiveness of the bio industry will be determined by how quickly and precisely it can run the "DBTL (Design-Build-Test-Learn) cycle." DBTL is the core development process of synthetic biology: designing, building, testing, and learning again. As standardized data accumulates through robot-automated experiments, AI design accuracy improves, leading to better experimental results in a virtuous cycle.
However, Kondo believes that technological capability alone is not enough for excellent research to lead to companies and industries. "What is most needed to connect basic research to industry is, more than technological capability, a strong will to 'solve social problems with this technology and change the world for the better,'" he said. He explained that since it takes many failures and much time for laboratory achievements to reach the market, a sense of purpose and commitment to commercialization that pushes social implementation through to the end are important.
However, there are limits to what the will of individual researchers and startups alone can achieve. Kondo called for a shift in the roles of public infrastructure and private companies, especially large corporations. Synthetic biology cannot gain speed through the traditional bio research approach of improving specific microorganisms or enzymes over long periods. A structure is needed in which AI designs, robots experiment, standardized data accumulates, and AI learns from it again. This is why the design capabilities of laboratories, automated equipment and data infrastructure, and the demand from materials, pharmaceutical, and chemical companies must all be connected.
In particular, Kondo emphasizes large corporations' "shift to open innovation." Universities and startups have original technologies and rapid experimental capabilities, while large corporations have capital, production facilities, quality control, and market access. Only when these are connected through public and private bio foundries can synthetic biology research move beyond papers and laboratory achievements to actual new drugs, bio-based materials, food, and chemical raw materials, he explained. "In an era where it is difficult to create innovation if large corporations obsess only over in-house development," he said, "they must shift to a mindset that actively utilizes public and private bio foundries as extensions of their own research labs and dramatically accelerates development speed by linking with external startups."
