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Drew Endy carried his computer out of the house that caught fire.
Mr. Endy was accepted to graduate school in political science.
The episodes sum up Mr. Endy, a scientist who is both engineer and philosopher, with references to Descartes and Dylan.
He is also an advocate of sorts. Mr. Endy is a professor of bioengineering at the university. He is the most articulate enthusiast, inspiring others to see it as a path to a better world, a transformational technology to feed the planet, conquer disease and combat pollution.
The optimism behind synthetic biology assumes that biology can follow the trajectory of computing, where progress was made possible by the continuous improvement in microchips, with performance doubling and price dropping in half every year or two for decades. The underlying technologies for synthetic biology are similar.
The goal of redesigning organisms for useful purposes is the same as in computing. The aim is to make programming and production more reliable, cheaper and more efficient, and to make it more an engineering discipline with reuse and automation.
Proponents of synthetic biology say it holds the promise of being more powerful and then mass-produced the cells to increase food production, fight disease, generate energy, purify water and devour carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Mr. Endy said that engineering and biology are coming together. Civilization-scale flourishing, a world of abundance not scarcity, supports a growing global population without destroying the planet.
If it is not possible, that idyllic future is decades away. Synthetic biology is a prime candidate for the next big thing over the next 20 years. Mr. Endy makes the case more convincing.
He sees synthetic biology as a force that can change the sciences, society and culture like the personal computer and internet have done. Mr. Endy was a founder of two start-ups and his wife, Christina, is the chief executive of Antheia, a start-up that uses synthetic biology to make ingredients for essential medicines.
Mr. Endy believes that we are at a turning point that is essential to the industry's future. He said that synthetic biology companies are on the verge of making money.
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Money flowing in is a sign of optimism. The amount of money raised by synthetic biology companies in the first half of this year is more than the amount raised all of last year, according to a newsletter. In 2015, the total raised was $1 billion.
Tools makers and product developers make up the industry. The tool makers include well-established suppliers to synthetic biology companies, like Illumina and Pacific Biosciences, as well as newer companies like Twist Bioscience and Codex DNA.
Amazon supplies cloud computing services to many companies, but Ginkgo Bioworks has an all-in-one biofoundry that can be used to make synthetic biology products.
The product developers include organizations from small start-ups to pharma giants, and are developing products and new manufacturing processes with synthetic biology. Synthetic biology was used to speed up the production of vaccines.
Some applications do not aim to save lives or the planet. Cronos is using synthetic biology to develop cannabis products. Zbiotics is a San Francisco start-up.
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Mr. Endy said that engineering and biology are coming together in profound ways.
Mr. Endy sees potential for major industries to be transformed. The DEKALB seed business is owned by Bayer, which is creating nitrogen-fixing microbes to apply to seeds.
The start-up Genomatica is working with the yoga wear maker to shift from nylon to bio-built fabrics. Impossible Foods uses synthetic biology to make its burgers. The use of bio-based alternatives for chemical polymers is being explored by Bridgestone. Amyris, an early synthetic biology company, has become a supplier of ingredients for the cosmetics and fragrance industry.
He will hold up a phone and say that it can be made with synthetic biology in a few years. It would make economic sense if it could be done. His point is that synthetic biology has the potential to produce new materials.
Mr. Endy said that the garden clippings of the small city of Menlo Park weigh more than the global production of microchips. They are not comparable.
Mr. Endy said it was a provocation. It points to the first principles. Biology is a surplus manufacturing capacity. We don't think about it. This stuff is being made for free.
Endy said, "All atoms are local." He said that synthetic biology lashed to the internet will enable a design anywhere, grow everywhere paradigm that could lead to a massive upgrade of local manufacturing and an economic rebalancing.
Mr. Endy believes synthetic biology could prompt a rethinking of the relationship between humans and nature. He said it was an expression of human intention in partnership with nature. We are speaking with life.
The technology can be used to increase the number of species. Coral reefs are being destroyed by ocean warming. The corals in the Red Sea are very tolerant of heat. Altering coral genes to mimic the Red Sea varieties could halt the decline.
Mr. Endy wants to stretch minds and inspire, but some of the applications may sound far-fetched.
Emily Leproust, chief executive of Twist Bioscience, one of the DNA synthesis specialists, said that she felt as if her I.Q. had dropped when she talked to him. He is thinking on a different plane, offering a larger vision of what we are doing.
Mr. Endy gave a guest lecture in biology class when he was a senior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Kelly was questioning whether to continue after he found biology filled with tedious lab work. Mr. Endy spoke of the future and potential and he was very interested in him.
Mr. Kelly went on to earn a PhD in biological engineering at M.I.T. and founded Ginkgo Bioworks.
Mr. Kelly said that Drew Endy is a great community builder. Here is a vision of the future is what his message is. Let's try to make it happen.
Mr. Endy is a board member of two major nonprofits that are trying to enlarge the synthetic biology community.
Scientists and engineers are organized by the BioBricks Foundation to develop standardized DNA parts. Contributors agree to let others use the biobricks.
Teams of students make synthetic biology projects from kits of biobricks and compete in annual contests by the International Genetically engineered Machine Foundation. Over 60,000 students from teams around the world have participated in the competition since 2004.
David Haussler, a professor of biomolecular engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said that getting young people involved and opening their eyes to the potential to build life has been transformational for the field. Drew Endy has been a mentor.
There is a dark side to synthetic biology. The potential for an angry group to create a build-your-own pandemic genetically targeted at their enemies is one of the potential horrors of hacking biology and democratizing the tools to do so.
Mr. Endy has been clear about the risks since the beginning. He was the lead author of a report that laid out a framework for developing synthetic biology and managing its risks. He imagined the bad-actor threat to be Bin Laden Genetics in the report.
Mr. Endy said that risk management should start with the assumption that anyone, anywhere can make a virus.
Synthetic biology is one line of protection. Mr. Endy points to the possibility of advanced technologies like engineered chromosomes that would give humans a built-in defense system against the world's top 20 pathogens.
Resistance to getting vaccine and wearing masks, as well as gaps in the public health system, have proved challenging during the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Mr. Endy acknowledges that the risks are worrisome and that they contribute to the concerns about the entire synthetic biology endeavor. It can easily be seen as messing with nature.
His big-tent community building seeks to create enthusiasm, even affection, for next-generation biotechnology, much as he felt toward his personal computer as a 12-year-old.
Synthetic biology is a technology that is more good than bad, and one that can even inspire an emotional connection, according to him. I ran out of the house with the computer. He said that he loved it. Can a society fall in love with technology? That is my bet.
