BIOENG 247
Principles of Synthetic Biology
The field of synthetic biology is quickly emerging as potentially one of the most important and profound ways by which we can understand and manipulate our physical world for desired purposes. In this course, the field and its natural scientific and engineering basis are introduced. Relevant topics in cellular and molecular biology and biophysics, dynamical and engineering systems, and design and operation of natural and synthetic circuits are covered in a concise manner that then allows the student to begin to design new biology-based systems.
Topics
- (1) To introduce the basics of Synthetic Biology, including quantitative cellular network characterization and modeling, (2) to introduce the principles of discovery and genetic factoring of useful cellular activities into reusable functions for design, (3) to inculcate the principles of biomolecular system design and diagnosis of designed systems, and (4) to illustrate cutting-edge applications in Synthetic Biology and to enhance skull sin analyzing and designing synthetic biological applications.
- The goals of this course are to enable students to: (1) design simple cellular circuitry to meet engineering specification using both rational/model-based and library-based approaches, (2) design experiments to characterize and diagnose operation of natural and synthetic biomolecular network functions, and (3) understand scientific, safety and ethical issues of synthetic biology.
Official catalogue course objectives and student learning outcomes
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026-2027