UMMS Affiliation
Program in Systems Biology; Department of Microbiology and Physiological Systems
Publication Date
2016-03-08
Document Type
Article
Disciplines
Cell Biology | Genetics and Genomics | Integrative Biology | Molecular Biology | Systems Biology
Abstract
The main tenet of physical biology is that biological phenomena can be subject to the same quantitative and predictive understanding that physics has afforded in the context of inanimate matter. However, the inherent complexity of many of these biological processes often leads to the derivation of complex theoretical descriptions containing a plethora of unknown parameters. Such complex descriptions pose a conceptual challenge to the establishment of a solid basis for predictive biology. In this article, we present various exciting examples of how synthetic biology can be used to simplify biological systems and distill these phenomena down to their essential features as a means to enable their theoretical description. Here, synthetic biology goes beyond previous efforts to engineer nature and becomes a tool to bend nature to understand it. We discuss various recent and classic experiments featuring applications of this synthetic approach to the elucidation of problems ranging from bacteriophage infection, to transcriptional regulation in bacteria and in developing embryos, to evolution. In all of these examples, synthetic biology provides the opportunity to turn cells into the equivalent of a test tube, where biological phenomena can be reconstituted and our theoretical understanding put to test with the same ease that these same phenomena can be studied in the in vitro setting.
Keywords
synthetic biology
DOI of Published Version
10.1039/c6ib00006a
Source
Integr Biol (Camb). 2016 Mar 8. Link to article on publisher's site
Journal/Book/Conference Title
Integrative biology : quantitative biosciences from nano to macro
Related Resources
PubMed ID
26952708
Repository Citation
Garcia HG, Brewster RC, Phillips R. (2016). Using synthetic biology to make cells tomorrow's test tubes. Program in Systems Biology Publications. https://doi.org/10.1039/c6ib00006a. Retrieved from https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/sysbio_pubs/80
Included in
Cell Biology Commons, Genetics and Genomics Commons, Integrative Biology Commons, Molecular Biology Commons, Systems Biology Commons
Comments
© The Royal Society of Chemistry 2016. Publisher PDF posted after 12 months as allowed by the publisher's author rights policy at http://www.rsc.org/journals-books-databases/journal-authors-reviewers/licences-copyright-permissions/#author-rights.