Engineering Life: An Introduction to Synthetic Biology

3.0 credits · Undergraduate

Synthetic biology (syn bio) sits at the intersection of chemical engineering, biology, and design, applying engineering principles to reprogram living systems and molecular machines for new purposes, from producing lifesaving therapeutics and sustainable food ingredients to building programmable biosensors. Introduces first-year students to the core toolkit of chemical and biomolecular engineering (CBE) as applied to syn bio: DNA and protein engineering, gene circuit design and metabolic pathway engineering, and engineered cells, cell lines and cell-free systems. Students will encounter both living cellular systems, which power applications like engineered cell therapies and cell-based biomanufacturing, and cell-free platforms, which enable building and testing biological function in a test tube without growing living cells at all. Through hands-on labs, students will design a simple genetic circuit, engineer a protein for a new function, and use a cell-free expression system to rapidly prototype a biological design, the same approach ChemE's use to develop new diagnostics, therapeutic proteins and vaccines, engineered cell therapies, and biomanufacturing platforms. Exploration of career pathways in CBE and syn bio to understand the wide range of what ChemE's do in practice.