Engineering biology is the set of methods for designing, building, and testing engineered
biological systems which have been used to manipulate information, construct materials, process chemicals, produce energy, provide food, and help maintain or enhance human health and environment.[1]
History
Rapid advances in the ability to
genetically modify biological organisms have advanced a new engineering discipline, commonly referred to as
synthetic biology. This approach seeks to harness the power of living systems for a variety of manufacturing applications, such as advanced therapeutics,
sustainable fuels, chemical feedstocks, and advanced materials. To date, research in synthetic biology has typically relied on trial-and-error approaches, which are costly, laborious, and inefficient.[2]
References
^Endy, D. (2005). Foundations for engineering biology. Nature, 438(7067), 449-453.
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^Hutchison, C. A., Chuang, R. Y., Noskov, V. N., Assad-Garcia, N., Deerinck, T. J., Ellisman, M. H., ... & Pelletier, J. F. (2016). Design and synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome. Science, 351(6280), aad6253.
doi:10.1126/science.aad6253
Schuergers, N., Werlang, C., Ajo-Franklin, C., & Boghossian, A. (2017). A Synthetic Biology Approach to Engineering Living Photovoltaics. Energy & Environmental Science. doi:10.1039/C7EE00282C
Teague, B. P., Guye, P., & Weiss, R. (2016). Synthetic Morphogenesis. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, 8(9), a023929. doi:10.1101/cshperspect.a023929
Kelley, N. J. (2014). The promise and challenge of engineering biology in the United States. Industrial Biotechnology, 10(3), 137–139.
doi:10.1089/ind.2014.1516
↑ Beal, J., Weiss, R., Densmore, D., Adler, A., Babb, J., Bhatia, S., ... & Loyall, J. (2011, June). TASBE: A tool-chain to accelerate synthetic biological engineering. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Bio-Design Automation (pp. 19–21).
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.467.7189&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Schrödinger, E. (1946). What is life?: the physical aspect of the living cell. Cambridge.