Overview of Health & Synthetic Biology by Wedell Lim: The ability to systematically and flexibly manipulate and control cellular systems is the threshold to a new era in medicine, hence the importance of synthetic biology synthetic organic chemistry -> intellectual capital: understanding of biochemical reactions; tangible benifits: construction of novel molecules Synthetic biology ...

First point: "I really don't think this has any practical applications, at least in the foreseeable future." Goal is to build a simple cell based on a replication vesicle for compartmentalization and a replicating genome. If the cell is to be simple, the environment must be correspondingly complex. ...

Chemical tools for probing the glycome - Carolyn Bertozzi Glycosyltation is the most complex form of posttranslational modification. polysaccharaides attached to membrane-bound proteins can facilitate cell-cell (or membrane-membrane, at least) communication by interacting with corresponding membrane-bound receptors. Fundamental "glycomics" questions: Which proteins are modified with what kinds of glycans (50% of eykaryotic ...

Let's make a new communication system by utilizing an existing communication system. "I'm just the parts lady; I'm the one who has to sit there figure out how to define parts to... and so LuxR is my chosen substrate." Novel idea for using signal pathways: predator-prey system, consensus consortium - something activates ...

"Proteins are involved in virtually every life process." 20 amino acids are encoded by 61 of the 64 codons. To generate interesting protein properties, there are two avenues: to increase the building blocks (i.e. genetically encode unnatural amino acids), and 2. to permute and recombine the existing AAs ...

J. D. Kittle - Coda genomics CODA (Computationally Optimized DNA Assembly), also incorporates its patented Translation Engineering TM into the design of the gene. John Danner - Codon Devices Mission: to eliminate construction as a barrier to synthetic biology (Drew's point #4). Key enabling technologies: CAD design environment -> multiplexed oligo synthesis & purification ...

This is Drew's Synthetic Biology Central Dogma: Recombinant DNA PCR Sequencing Synthesis Standardization Abstraction We've got the first three. Four is coming, and that means we need to talk about five and six. When synthesis becomes trivial, the barriers to innovation will be largely informational, dependant on our ability as a community to organize and ...

If we are interested in programming cellular behavior, then we need to be concerned with the network of biomolecules that interact to cause certain behaviors. DNA -> pre-mRNA->mRNA -> [export] -> [translation complex] -> proteins all fall under the auspices of "biomolecules." "We tend to think of the molecules we ...

To build a cell you could start from the top down and reduce it's genome to the minimum size: ~400 genes. Or you could take a bottom-up approach and attempt to build a cell molecule-by-molecule with the "molecules of life." The idea is to develop an artificial cell as a programmable ...

Megacloning. The purpose of Itaya's work was push DNA cloning to the limit by cloning the entire 3.2 Mb genome of Synechocystis into B. subtilis. The work took several years, and is summarized at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which also published this paper.