Search results for "Synthetic Biology"

The iGEM Competition

2014

The international Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition is a well-known example of synthetic biology and a workbench for the development of heterodox, multidisciplinary and frontier work made by undergraduate students. We review the origin, organization and structure of the competition; we describe how an iGEM team can be set in place, and briefly summarize some of the main milestones and challenges of a competition that is only one decade old. We discuss the links of the competition with the Registry of Standard Biological Parts and the flagship role of iGEM as a very trench of the synthetic biology revolution.

Designer membraneless organelles enable codon reassignment of selected mRNAs in eukaryotes.

2019

How to make an organelle in eukaryotes A key step in the evolution of complex organisms like eukaryotes was the organization of specific tasks into organelles. Reinkemeier et al. designed an artificial, membraneless organelle into mammalian cells to perform orthogonal translation. In response to a specific codon in a selected messenger RNA, ribosomes confined to this organelle were able to introduce chemical functionalities site-specifically, expanding the canonical set of amino acids. This approach opens possibilities in synthetic cell engineering and biomedical research. Science , this issue p. eaaw2644

The ten grand challenges of synthetic life

2011

The construction of artificial life is one of the main scientific challenges of the Synthetic Biology era. Advances in DNA synthesis and a better understanding of regulatory processes make the goal of constructing the first artificial cell a realistic possibility. This would be both a fundamental scientific milestone and a starting point of a vast range of applications, from biofuel production to drug design. However, several major issues might hamper the objective of achieving an artificial cell. From the bottom-up to the selection-based strategies, this work encompasses the ten grand challenges synthetic biologists will have to be aware of in order to cope with the task of creating life i…

Galaxy-SynBioCAD: Synthetic Biology Design Automation tools in Galaxy workflows

2020

AbstractMany computer-aided design tools are available for synthetic biology and metabolic engineering. Yet, these tools can be difficult to apprehend, sometimes requiring a level of expertise that limits their use by a wider community. Furthermore, some of the tools, although complementary, rely on different input and output formats and cannot communicate with one another. Scientific workflows address these shortcomings while offering a novel design strategy. Among the workflow systems available, Galaxy is a web-based platform for performing findable and accessible data analyses for all scientists regardless of their informatics expertise, along with interoperable and reproducible computat…

Insights into how nucleotide supplements enhance the peroxidase-mimicking DNAzyme activity of the G-quadruplex/hemin system

2012

Since the initial discovery of the catalytic capability of short DNA fragments, this peculiar enzyme-like property (termed DNAzyme) has continued to garner much interest in the scientific community because of the virtually unlimited applications in developing new molecular devices. Alongside the exponential rise in the number of DNAzyme applications in the last past years, the search for convenient ways to improve its overall efficiency has only started to emerge. Credence has been lent to this strategy by the recent demonstration that the quadruplex-based DNAzyme proficiency can be enhanced by ATP supplements. Herein, we have made a further leap along this path, trying first of all to deci…

Synthetic microbiology as a source of new enterprises and job creation: a Mediterranean perspective

2019

Peer reviewed

Standards not that standard

2015

There is a general assent on the key role of standards in Synthetic Biology. In two consecutive letters to this journal, suggestions on the assembly methods for the Registry of standard biological parts have been described. We fully agree with those authors on the need of a more flexible building strategy and we highlight in the present work two major functional challenges standardization efforts have to deal with: the need of both universal and orthogonal behaviors. We provide experimental data that clearly indicate that such engineering requirements should not be taken for granted in Synthetic Biology. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s1303…

Paving the way for synthetic biology‐based bioremediation in Europe

2010

What Symbionts Teach us about Modularity

2013

The main goal of Synthetic Biology is to apply engineering principles to biotechnology in order to make life easier to engineer. These engineering principles include modularity: decoupling of complex systems into smaller, orthogonal subsystems that can be used in a range of different applications. The successful use of modules in engineering is expected to be reproduced in synthetic biological systems. But the difficulties experienced up to date with synthetic biology approaches question the short-term feasibility of designing life. Considering the “engineerable” nature of life, here we discuss the existence of modularity in natural living systems, particularly in symbiotic interactions, an…

Obsolescence and intervention: on synthetic-biological entities.

2014

Oftentimes, topics that might fall outside of science’s remit seem to end up becoming a part of it, sooner or later. This appears to be the case of synthetic biology, a new biological science (although some maintain that it is a form of engineering, or treat it as such; Endy, 2005), which seems to have become essential to the understanding of living beings and their extreme manipulation. I believe it to be a new form of biology. In truth, synthetic biology has a long history and, conceptually speaking, may well have formed part of the interests and research efforts of our illustrious predecessors throughout the first half of the twentieth century and even earlier. In any event, and broadly …