Synthetic Biology:FAQ

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  1. What is synthetic biology?
  2. What is the difference between synthetic biology and systems biology?
  3. Why bother?
  4. What is your approach towards synthetic biology?
    • We are working to help create a general scientific and technical infrastructure that supports the design and synthesis of biological systems. Specifically we are working to (a) specify and populate a set of standard parts that have well-defined performance characteristics and can be used (and re-used) to build biological systems, (b) develop and incorporate design methods and tools into a integrated engineering environment, (c) reverse engineer and re-design pre-existing biological parts and devices in order to expand the set of functions that we can access and program (d) reverse engineer and re-design a 'simple' natural bacterium.
  5. Why are you working to redesign bacterium?
    • Bacteria are the simplest known objects from the natural world that are capable of replicating when provided with only simpler components (e.g., broth). Still, bacteria are far from simple. Bacteria also provide the basic environment in which synthetic biological systems exist and act (i.e., they are like the power supply and chassis of a computer). By re-designing/refactoring a simple living system we hope to learn how to better couple (and decouple) our designed systems from their host environment.
  6. Life isn't digital. Why are you trying to implement digital logic in cells?
  7. Is what you're doing dangerous?
  8. What about ethical or moral issues?
  9. What technologies would benefit synthetic biology?
    • Fast and cheap DNA sequencing and synthesis would allow for rapid design, fabrication, and testing of systems. Software tools that enable system design and simulation are also needed. Still-better measurement technologies that allow for observation of biological system state (i.e., the equivalent of a biological debugger) are also needed.
  10. I want to study synthetic biology, where should I go?
    • The field's relatively new and so there aren't any critical mass programs in place as yet. In terms of programs where such work is happening, here is a short list: MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (Tom Knight); MIT Biological Engineering (Drew Endy); MIT Computational and Systems and Biology Initiative (Drew Endy and Tom Knight); UC Berkeley Bioengineering (Jay Keasling, Adam Arkin and others); Caltech Bioengineering, Biology, Engineering and Applied Science (Michael Elowitz and Frances Arnold); Princeton Electrical Engineering (Ron Weiss) and Boston University Biomedical Engineering (Jim Collins and Tim Gardner)
  11. I'm interested in donating time, money, and/or moral support. What do I do?
    • Donations of any sort are always welcome. Contact us.
  12. Why isn't my question listed here?
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