Aiming high, but investing little
Résumé
Synthetic biology is one of the most rapidly growing fields in the biological sciences and is attracting an increasing amount of public and private funding. France has also seen a slow but steady development of this field: the establishment of a national network of synthetic biologists in 2005, the first participation of a French team at the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition in 2007, the creation of a Master's curriculum, an institute dedicated to synthetic and systems biology at the University of Évry-Val-d'Essonne-CNRS-Genopole in 2009-2010, and an increasing number of conferences and debates. However, scientists have driven the field with little dedicated financial support from the government.