SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY (2ND ED)

The first edition of this book was the first manual for laboratory work in the rapidly expanding field of synthetic biology. Based upon a highly successful university course by one of the pioneers in synthetic biology, the manual became particularly popular with students of the enormous annual international Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. Questions at the time included the scalability of BioBrick cloning, how to stabilize chromoprotein expression and change the colors, and how to adapt methods for high schools and biohackers. A decade later, this second edition answers these questions with huge BioBrick constructs (front cover), next-generation less-toxic chromoproteins in a kit, and ultraviolet-light-free quantitation by smartphones. Further updates include a computational modeling lab and new avenues in SynBio.

Contents:

• Introduction
• Genes, Chromoproteins and Antisense RNAs
• Lab Rooms and Equipment
• Safety is Priority #1
• Lab Course Projects
• Protocols
• Advanced Methods
• The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Competition
• Appendices

Readership: Students and teachers in academia; university graduates and undergraduates (molecular biology, microbiology, genetics). A few protocols are suitable for high school (biology).

Anthony C Forster (MD, Harvard; B.Sc.Hons., PhD in Biochemistry, Adelaide) is a professor researching synthetic biology at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Uppsala University, Sweden. He discovered the hammerhead catalytic RNA structure, authored patents that founded two biotech companies, edited synthetic biology volumes of Methods and Biotechnology J, and created the synthetic biology lab course detailed in this manual.Letian Bao (B.Biotech., Jilin, China; M.Biol., Uppsala) is a PhD student in Prof. Forster's lab at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Uppsala University, Sweden. He engineered chromoproteins to overcome their limitations and improve the lab course.Josefine Liljeruhm (M.Sc. in Molecular Biotechnology and PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology, Uppsala) is a Senior System Engineer at Cytiva, Uppsala. As a PhD student in Prof. Forster's lab, she set up and taught the lab course detailed in this manual and characterized the chromoproteins.

Review of the First Edition:It provides an introductory workflow for common techniques and would be of definite use to educators wanting to bring synthetic biology into the classroom or for motivated undergraduate students with the desire to start their own iGEM team. - Synthetic BiologySee Full Review