Host: Marc Pelletier Panelists: Dr. John Bergeron, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at McGill University, and former President of the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO), and founder of Caprion Proteomics Dr. Drew Endy, Cabot Assistant Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT, in Cambridge Massachusetts Dr. Edward Delong, Professor, Division of Biological Engineering & Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT Dr. Lee Hood is the President of the Institute for Systems Biology in Seatle, Washington Leo (our Chief TWiT) often mentions Ray Kurzweil's hypothesis of a singularity. Kurzwell writes that "Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity—technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history". This prompted me to think about what is currently going on in biotech: James Watson (Nobel Laureate that shared the prize for solving the structure of DNA) recently received a copy of his OWN genome. Also, scientists are developing drugs that could extend the human life span by thirty years (Ep. 2), and moreover, engineers are now considering biology to be a substrate for engineering: producing artificial chromosomes (Ep. 9) in the lab. These amazing developments raise the question of a singularity in biotechnology. Is the time approaching where we will have a --complete-- understanding of the underlying processes of life? If so, how will this change our health, medicine, our lives? It is clear that our greatest challenges still lie ahead: cancer, heart disease, HIV-AIDS, organ regeneration, environmental change etc... But the fact remains: technologies are advancing at logarithmic rates, and biotechnology is no exception. So for this episode, I sought out three world leading scientists (and engineer!) to discuss the current state of biotechnology, and what we should expect in this century- the century of biotech... DISCLAIMER: I had some difficulties with the audio from Canada. I struggled with Skype and Dr. Bergeron's bandwith and levels were low but audible. Since I didn't see it in the stars to be able to pull together this level of panelists again soon I went ahead with the recording. When I boosted his audio in post production, noise was also amplified and difficult to remove. Fortunately Ryan Leng from Pulau Pinang, Malaysia, did some great work improving clarity and listenability. This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com. Download a free audiobook of your choice today at Audible.com/TWiT Thanks to Cachefly for providing the bandwidth for this netcast. Also thanks to Philippe Pelletier and Will Hall for the great opening and closing themes AND Matthew McInerney for the cool new FiB Desktops