Biochemistry 3382A Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Synthetic Biology, Bioterrorism, Exonuclease
11 Jan 2015
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
It combines biology and engineering to create systems not found in nature but that may mimic natural systems. It involves the design and construction of new biological parts, devices, and systems, and the re-design of existing, natural biological systems for useful purposes. Goals: make predictable models that function as expected. Also known as forward engineering: assemble standard, reusable parts proteins, enzymes, promoters, etc, make modular (flexible) designs, synthesize new genomes and organisms. Synthetic biology test current understanding of biological systems. What i cannot create, i cannot understand ~feynman. Some ethical concerns arise about the safety of this synthesized molecules/systems and their potential bioterrorism uses and accidental release. Synthetic biology is possible because of the hierarchical nature of biology starting from the genes that eventually makes tissues and cultures. Technical advances that have made synthetic biology possible are: sequencing, oligonucleotide synthesis - cost reduction, length increase, molecular cloning methods - bac, yac, pcr, gene synthesis.
