Synthetic Biology

6 units · Graduate

Fall: 6 units This course discusses the design of artificial biological parts or systems for research, engineering and medical applications. The course is divided into two parts: top-down and bottom-up synthetic biology. In top-down synthetic biology, engineering of cells with new functions or new products with metabolic and genetic engineering techniques such as circuit building, directed evolution, CRISPR-Cas9 will be covered. In bottom-up synthetic biology, the assembly of molecules to obtain a specific biological output such as in vitro reconstitution of cellular machinery, cell free protein expression system and construction of artificial cells will be discussed. Prerequisites: 03-232 or 03-231