Endy:Research

Home Teams Research Notebooks Publications Internal Contact

Design of Integrated Biological Systems

We are working to enable the design and construction of large scale integrated biological systems. Biology presents a new medium for engineering and contains many domain-specific challenges (e.g., evolution). Still, in getting started, we can make use of past successful experience in other disciplines. We are currently exploring the application of three past engineering lessons: (1) standardization of components, conditions, and characterization, (2) abstraction as a tool for hiding information and managing complexity, and (3) decoupling of overwhelming, complicated problems into many simpler problems (e.g., design and fabrication).

Biological Systems Modeling

We are working to develop and improve general methods for representing cellular behavior. Consider, for example, Magritte’s painting Clairvoyance (1936); a man appears to look at an egg while painting a bird. At least three models could explain the scene. First, the man is clairvoyant – he is able to perceive the potential of the egg and paint the appropriate animal (i.e., bird in place of platypus). Second, the man has prior knowledge that eggs of a certain type turn into particular birds – he describes what he expects will occur based on past experience. Third, the man has the ability, hidden from the viewer, to determine the relevant physical state of the egg. Furthermore, the man has access to a “standard model” for cellular chemistry and physics. Taken together, he is able to observe any particular egg and predict the relevant properties of the resulting animal. We are working to make the third model happen. [modeling would be easier if eggs were designed to be easy to model in the first place – please see our interests re: Design of Integrated Biological Systems above]