Bioengineering: making life from scratch

Melanie SwanMS Futures Group+1-650-681-9482

m@melanieswan.comhttp://www.melanieswan.com

Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga/slideshowsNIH, Bethesda MD

September 25, 2008

Must build it to understand it

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Synthetic biology

Novel biological system

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The new biology: virtuous feedback loop

Model and simulate

Investigate and

experiment

Build

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Bio-SPICE

Biological Simulation Program for Intra- and Inter-Cellular Evaluation

http://biospice.org

Model and

simulate

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Registry of Standard Biological Parts Build

http://partsregistry.org

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Parts Registry: select measurement device

http://partsregistry.org

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Parts Registry: obtain part sequence

DNA Synthesizer

http://partsregistry.org

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The story of biocomputing

Mapping genes to proteins -> life can be engineered Genes can be turned on and off -> gene as binary switch Systemic understanding of DNA -> genes as circuits Cell noisiness -> need for stable and predictable circuits

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Repressilator schema“Noisy” cells

Michael Elowitz

Stanislas Leibler

Repressilator

A synthetic oscillatory network of transcriptional regulatorsMichael B. Elowitz & Stanislas Leibler

Nature. 2000 Jan 20;403(6767):335-38.http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v403/n6767/full/403335a0.html

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Construction of a genetic toggle switch in Escherichia coliGardner TS, Cantor CR, Collins JJ

Nature. 2000 Jan 20;403(6767):339-42.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10659857

Toggle switch induction threshold

Toggle switch plasmid

Gardner Cantor Collins

Genetic toggle switch

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Open wetware

Drew Endy

Parts Registry BioBricks Foundation iGEM competition

http://openwetware.org/http://bbf.openwetware.org/http://www.igem.org/http://partsregistry.org

12Genome

Bacterial image Genetic map

Craig Venter

Synthetic life

Synthetic life Fourth-generation biofuels

Mycoplasma genitalium

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Further applications of bioengineering

Coli-roid microbial camera

Landmine sensing plant: Arabidopsis thaliana

Amorphous computing

Natural genetic engineering

Ciliate

Cellular colonies

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Summary

Model and simulate

Investigate and

experiment

Build

Thank you

Melanie SwanMS Futures Group+1-650-681-9482

m@melanieswan.comhttp://www.melanieswan.com

Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga/slideshowsNIH, Bethesda MD

September 25, 2008