Synthetic biology: A control engineering perspective

Abstract

Synthetic Biology is a new, rapidly developing field at the interface of Engineering and Biology. It aims to design new, or redesign existing biological systems for a particular purpose. The early years have seen the design of simple devices and parts (such as switches and oscillators); Synthetic Biology is now entering a new phase of development as the successfully designed devices of recent years are exploited to create systems of increasing sophistication. Control theoretic techniques play an important part in the design of these networks, as well as for allowing increasing levels of complexity to be engineered into synthetic biological systems. At the same time, the implementation of feedback control in these networks will allow them to sense, process and actuate on environmental and internal cues.