Synthetic Biology

Undergraduate / Graduate

The objective of this course is to provide an overview of the fundamentals of synthetic biology by exploration of published and primary literature. Synthetic biology is an interdisciplinary area that involves the application of engineering principles to biology. It aims at the (re-)design and fabrication of biological components and systems that do not already exist in the natural world. Our goal in the course will be to examine how to apply design principles to biological systems. This will require understanding how biological systems operate, what design principles are successful in biology, and a survey of current approaches in the field to tackle these challenges. Topics will include genetic manipulation, pathway engineering, protein design, cellular engineering, and tools for information input and output in biological systems.