INTRODUCTION TO SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY
CSE 490v and 599v
Time: MWF 10.30-11.20 Room: MOR 221
Professor Georg Seelig (gseelig@u.washington.edu)
SLN: 20251, 3 credits
This class is intended for graduate and upper-level undergraduate
students from a variety of backgrounds (EE, CSE, BioE and others). The class requires math
sophistication appropriate to a junior or senior in engineering but necessary
biological and mathematical concepts will be introduced in class.
Synthetic biology is the application of engineering principles to
biology with the dual goals of (i) building new functional biological systems (for
example for the production of biofuels or drugs) and (ii) understanding biology by
re-engineering it (“what I cannot create I do not understand”, R. Feynman).
Covered topics include:
• DNA, RNA and protein: transcription and translation
• Synthetic gene regulatory networks: oscillators, switches and others
• Theory of chemical kinetics and biochemical reaction networks
• Synthetic biology with bacteria and mammalian cells
• RNA synthetic biology: RNA switches and sensors, RNA interference
• In vitro synthetic biology: building molecular circuitry in the test tube
• Molecular programming: compilers for chemistry
• Applications: biofuels, drug production,…