Design principles of data converters for building large-scale gene networks in living cells

Scaling the architecture of synthetic gene networks remains one of the most challenging aspects of genetic engineering. We propose a new framework that combines analog signals and digital computation. The analog signals are used to communicate between the digital networks, which provide reliable computational results and form the basis for screening. The two systems are connected via data converters from analog to digital domains and vice versa. In this work, we show new design concepts for analog-to-digital converters (ADC) and digital-to-analog converters (DAC), with a minimal number of synthetic parts.