Synthetic Biology: Tools and Applications

Synthetic Biology provides a framework to examine key enabling components in the emerging area of synthetic biology. Chapters contributed by leaders in the field address tools and methodologies developed for engineering biological systems at many levels, including molecular, pathway, network, whole cell, and multi-cell levels. The book highlights exciting practical applications of synthetic biology such as microbial production of biofuels and drugs, artificial cells, synthetic viruses, and artificial photosynthesis. The roles of computers and computational design are discussed, as well as future prospects in the field, including cell-free synthetic biology and engineering synthetic ecosystems.

Synthetic biology is the design and construction of new biological entities, such as enzymes, genetic circuits, and cells, or the redesign of existing biological systems. It builds on the advances in molecular, cell, and systems biology and seeks to transform biology in the same way that synthesis transformed chemistry and integrated circuit design transformed computing. The element that distinguishes synthetic biology from traditional molecular and cellular biology is the focus on the design and construction of core components that can be modeled, understood, and tuned to meet specific performance criteria and the assembly of these smaller parts and devices into larger integrated systems that solve specific biotechnology problems.

Includes contributions from  leaders in the field presents examples of ambitious synthetic biology efforts including creation of artificial cells from scratch, cell-free synthesis of chemicals, fuels, and proteins, engineering of artificial photosynthesis for biofuels production, and creation of unnatural living organismsDescribes the latest state-of-the-art tools developed for low-cost synthesis of ever-increasing sizes of DNA and efficient modification of proteins, pathways, and genomesHighlights key technologies for analyzing biological systems at the genomic, proteomic, and metabolomic levels which are especially valuable in pathway, whole cell, and multi-cell applicationsDetails mathematical modeling tools and computational tools which can dramatically increase the speed of the design process as well as reduce the cost of development. 

Introduction
Section I. Synthesis and engineering tools in synthetic biology
Chapter 1. DNA synthesis 
Chapter 2. Protein engineering 
Chapter 3. Pathway engineering 
Chapter 4. Biological standardization

Section II. Computational and theoretical tools in synthetic biology
Chapter 5. Biocomplexity issues in synthetic biology 
Chapter 6. Computational protein design
Chapter 7. Computer-Aided Design in Synthetic Biology
Chapter 8. Computational tools for strain design

Sections III. Applications in synthetic biology
Chapter 9. Pathway/network level: design and applications of therapeutic genetic circuits  
Chapter 10. Pathway/network level: production of drugs 
Chapter 11. Pathway/network level: synthesis of new fuels 
Chapter 12. Organism level: genome assembly 
Chapter 13. Multi-cell level: synthetic prey-predator system 

Section IV. Future prospects
Chapter 14. Design of artificial cells
Chapter 15. Cell-free synthetic biology 
Chapter 16. Artificial photosynthesis 
Chapter 17. Engineering synthetic ecosystems