Synthetic Biology: at the interface of Biology, Chemistry, and Engineering

3 credits

Traditionally, biological sciences have focused on characterizingexistingbiological systems. As our understanding of the natural biological systems advanced dramatically over the last century, opportunities to create 'synthetic' biological systems with novel functions emerged. Synthetic Biology is a young cross-disciplinary field that aspires to transform the promise of engineering new biological functions into a reality. Over the last two decades, synthetic biology has advanced tremendously, providing us transformative new tools to study biology, as well as powerful new therapeutic strategies that are revolutionizing modernmedicine. This course will provide a primer to this discipline by introducing some of the core topics, followed by student-led discussions of recent literature. CHEM2231 Organic Chemistry I, one course in biochemistry and one semester of molecular/cell biology are recommended as pre-requisites.