Sakkie Pretorius discusses practices of synthetic biology that are now being integrated into ‘multiscale’ designs enabling two-way communication across organic and inorganic information substrates in biological, digital and cyber-physical system integrations. Professor Sakkie Pretorius is internationally recognised as a pioneer in molecular microbiology, biotechnology and translating research outcomes into innovative industry applications and the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research at Macquarie University. Image courtesy of Sakkie Pretorius. Study