What's Next for Synthetic Biology?

The 7investing Podcast · Jun 8, 2021 · 1h 16m

It's been a long and winding road for synthetic biology. The first wave of publicly-traded companies emerged in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Many were founded on the promise of engineering microbes to produce renewable fuels, which could ease supply constraints and price volatility. It's easy to forget now, but before fracking came along the world was legitimately worried about Peak Oil.

Unfortunately, all efforts to manufacture cost-competitive microbial fuels crashed and burned. The technical obstacles were too great. The economics simply weren't there. Although a few companies pivoted…