When the ball dropped in Times Square December 31 a few seconds before midnight, it marked the beginning of a new year—a year to “celebrate the achievements of chemistry and its contributions to the well-being of humankind.”

The second session of ICBE 2011 focused on how recent advances in synthetic biology have expanded the field of biology, and the potential of the research to engineer new organisms. The first speaker, Michael Elowitz from the California Institute of Technology, set up the session by explaining how rewiring excitable gene circuits can allow control over differentiation.

In Making Stuff, NOVA's new four-part series, technology reporter David Pogue takes viewers on a tour of scientific innovations that are ushering in a new generation of materials.

The first session of ICBE continued with the theme of last night’s keynote speaker, focusing on evolutionary engineering, this time with proteins. The session started with a presentation from Georges Belfort of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he spoke on his research’s effort to learn more about protein fibrils which induce amyloid diseases.

The 2011 ICBE—International Conference on Biomolecular Engineering—started with a fantastic keynote speaker. Frances Arnold, from the California Institute of Technology, gave a great look into her career focusing on evolutionary design of proteins and biological systems, and her research groups’ success with cytochrome P450 enzymes.