CHE.496/2008/Schedule/Synthetic biology overview

Synthetic biology overview

• Course overview
• Intro to OpenWetWare
• Intelligent Design link
  • Purpose: This articles provides an overview of synthetic biology including its roots, motivation, and safety concerns.
  • We already have a "parts-list" for the cell and are now able to begin to understand how these parts interact to form complex systems (living organisms). This is what synthetic biology does; it puts the pieces back together. So, the goal of synthetic biology is two-fold: to test our knowledge of biological systems by simply building these systems from the bottom-up and to create novel biological systems for practical purposes, to solve problems.
  • Synthetic biology can be likened to electrical and computer engineering (the cell is a computer, which is composed of circuits and other well understood components). In addition, it can be related to synthetic chemistry, which involves synthesizing more complicated compounds from simpler, more available components. By extension, synthetic biology involves synthesizing new biological systems (eventually including organisms that have never existed in nature) from a set of well-understood components (e.g., the Registry of Standard Biological Parts).

• Extreme genetic engineering: an introduction to synthetic biology link
  • Purpose: This articles provides a wide-angle view of synthetic biology including each of its main project branches.

• Problem-based learning exercise
  • One of the major goals of this course is to stimulate the independent, critical thinking and problem-solving that is necessary to operate a student research group such as the Virginia Genetically Engineered Machine Team. To jump-start this, we will work together as a group to solve a problem.