BME 5306 - Genetic Engineering and Synthetic Biology

Cells have a remarkable ability to continuously sense, integrate, and store relevant physiological and biological information throughout their lives. They integrate many signals that surround them, and execute complex cellular behaviors based on these inputs. These attributes can be harnessed and manipulated using synthetic biology to tightly control gene expression in dynamic patterns, in addition to programming cells to sense, respond, and record changes in their microenvironment. Altogether, approaches in synthetic biology can be used to reprogram cells in rational and systematic ways to produce predictable and robust cellular behavior for many biotechnology applications. This new course will introduce advanced undergraduate and graduate students to the principles of genetic engineering, synthetic biology and the design of biological machines. We will discuss parts, devices and systems in DNA assembly for genetic engineering and synthetic biology applications. Students will learn about network structure, pathway engineering, and ultimately understand how synthetic networks can be simulated, built, and tested in a real organism. Specific topics will include various ways to control gene expression in biological systems, and examples will be discussed to demonstrate how intracellular components interact to give the observed biological behavior. Specifically, we will discuss engineering cellular Boolean logic gates, biosensors, endowing cells with memory, switches, oscillators, noise in cellular systems, feedback, and computational modeling of cellular networks.