Tracking the emergence of synthetic biology

Scientometrics (2017) 112:1439–1469 DOI 10.1007/s11192-017-2452-5 Tracking the emergence of synthetic biology Philip Shapira1,2,3 • Seokbeom Kwon2,4 • Jan Youtie4 Received: 31 December 2016 / Published online: 1 July 2017 Ó The Author(s) 2017. This article is an open access publication Abstract Synthetic biology is an emerging domain that combines biological and engineering concepts and which has seen rapid growth in research, innovation, and policy interest in recent years. This paper contributes to efforts to delineate this emerging domain by presenting a newly constructed bibliometric definition of synthetic biology. Our approach is dimensioned from a core set of papers in synthetic biology, using procedures to obtain benchmark synthetic biology publication records, extract keywords from these benchmark records, and refine the keywords, supplemented with articles published in dedicated synthetic biology journals. We compare our search strategy with other recent bibliometric approaches to define synthetic biology, using a common source of publication data for the period from 2000 to 2015. The paper details the rapid growth and international spread of research in synthetic biology in recent years, demonstrates that diverse research disciplines are contributing to the multidisciplinary development of synthetic biology research, and visualizes this by profiling synthetic biology research on the map of science. We further show the roles of a relatively concentrated set of research sponsors in funding the growth and trajectories of synthetic biology. In addition to discussing these analyses, the paper notes limitations and suggests lines for further work. Keywords Emerging technology
Synthetic biology
Bibliometric analysis
Search strategy
Map of science
Research sponsors JEL Classification I23
O31
032
038 & Philip Shapira 1 Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK 2 School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0345, USA 3 Manchester Synthetic Biology Research Centre for Fine and Speciality Chemicals, Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, University of Manchester, Manchester M1 7DN, UK 4 Enterprise Innovation Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30308, USA 123 1440 Scientometrics (2017) 112:1439–1469 Introduction Synthetic biology is, according to a National Academy of Sciences (2013, 2) report of working parties from the US, the UK, and China, ‘‘an emerging discipline that combines both scientific and engineering approaches to the study and manipulation of biology.’’ Similar descriptions have been put forward by other commissions and studies. For example, a joint opinion by three scientific committees of the European Commission (Breitling et al. 2015) emphasizes the role of design and engineering approaches by stating that synthetic biology is ‘‘the application of science, technology and engineering to facilitate and accelerate the design, manufacture and/or modification of genetic materials in living organisms.’’ A report of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (2015) suggests that while there is no agreed international definition, the key features of synthetic biology include ‘‘the de novo synthesis of genetic material and an engineeringbased approach to develop components, organisms and products.’’ Proponents of synthetic biology suggest that its capabilities to design and redesign biological components and systems will address global food and energy challenges, propel industrial transformation as sustainable bio-engineered processes replace current petrochemical technologies, and offer new gene-based methods to target human medical conditions and insect-borne diseases (Church and Regis 2012; Weber and Fussenegger 2012; National Academies of Science 2013; Le Feuvre et al. 2016). The growth of synthetic biology has been boosted by a series of scientific and technological developments. These include improvements in DNA synthesis (longer fragments and higher accuracy), reduced DNA synthesis and sequencing costs, new capabilities not only to read but also to edit and rewrite the genes and cells of organisms, advances in bio-engineering design and modeling techniques, enhanced tools for biological assembly and engineering, the development of standardized biological parts, and the use of automated and data-intensive methods to speed up discovery and testing (Canton et al. 2008; Cheng and Lu 2012; Keasling 2012; Church et al. 2014; Lienert et al. 2014; Breitling and Takano 2015; Shih and Moraes 2016). The spread of synthetic biology has also been accelerated by targeted research programs and public policies, including funding by multiple federal agencies in the US (Wilson Center 2015; Si and Zhao 2016), by the UK’s network of synthetic biology research centers and its national synthetic biology roadmap (UK Synthetic Biology Roadmap Coordination Group 2012; Synthetic Biology Leadership Council 2016), by European Union projects (ERASynBio 2014), and by growing support in China (Synbiobeta 2016). Increased synthetic biology R&D investment and intellectual property acquisition by leading private sector companies in pharmaceutical, agricultural, chemical, and other sectors (OTI 2015; Carbonell et al. 2016), new business start-ups with ambitious goals such as cow-free milk or open-source insulin (Qiu 2014; Tucker 2015), community-based bio-hacking labs (Scudellari 2013), and the iGEM international synthetic biology competition (Kelwick et al. 2015) have also contributed to the emergence of the domain. At the same time, ethical, risk, equity, and other policy concerns and have been raised about the potential implications of applications of synthetic biology (Tucker and Zilinskas 2006; ETC Group 2010; OECD 2014; Engelhard 2016). These concerns have highlighted attention to the importance of responsible research and innovation in synthetic biology (Douglas and Stemerding 2013; Li et al. 2015; Shapira and Gök 2015). In this context of rapid scientific advancement, increased public and private R&D, and stakeholder debate about the regulation and governance of synthetic biology, methods that can track the growth of research and innovation in synthetic biology are essential to inform 123 Scientometrics (2017) 112:1439–1469 1441 engagement, policy deliberation, and management, and to provide evidence for decisionmaking. While there is a degree of high-level expert convergence on the conceptualization of synthetic biology, there are blurry boundaries between the technology in question, legacy technologies, and other new technologies that might be related to it (Nature Biotechnology 2009; Thomas 2014). There are epistemic debates about the distinctions between synthetic biology, systems biology, and genetic engineering (O’Malley et al. 2007; Calvert 2008). Synthetic biology has a legacy that (...truncated)