Metabolic Engineering and Synthetic Biology

3 units

Synthetic Biology is a transformative view of biology from observation approach to synthesis approach. It is new engineering discipline and aims to make the engineering of new biological function predictable, safe, and quick. It will pave a wide range of applications to transform our views on production of sustainable energy and renewable chemicals, environmental problems, and human disease treatments. The field intersects with Metabolic Engineering in areas such as the design of novel pathways and genetic circuits for product generation and toxic chemical degradation. In this course, the field and its basis are introduced. First, relevant topics in biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering are covered. Second, students will participate in brain-storming and discussion on new biology-based systems. Last, students will design and present new synthetic biology systems to solve real-world problems. Both undergrad and graduate students can take this course.