- Make: Online : Modular stackable Arduino enclosure
- Making classic frequency counters into Nixie clocks
- The 4x4x4 LED Cube Using an Arduino
- Researchers develop genuine 3D camera
- Presidential Commission reports on Synthetic Biology
- Cambridge presentation 2010
- iGEM2010 Jamboree
- Improved BioBrick components for bioluminescence
- Cambridge team at the iGEM2010 Jamboree
- Tenure track position in Synthetic Biology at UCSF
- Commentary for Daisy Ginsberg's work
- University of Cambridge team wins iGEM synthetic biology competition
- Reversal of an epigenetic switch governing cell chaining in Bacillus subtilis by protein instability.
- Mini-documentary about the desks of creative people
- App Magnets – upgrade your fridge with some app-etising icons
- Hackintosh In A Cardboard Box
- This Lung-On-A-Chip
- Pickle Adhesive Bandages
- USB Mix Tape
- Monster illustrations from Ultraman sonosheet book
- 15 Cool Stickers for your iPhone
- Bacteria are able to extend psuedo-legs and walk upright
- Japanese flower has the largest known genome
- Gibson Assembly Song
- DIYbio articles in Nature
- Gibson Assembly Song
- In Living Color: Bacterial Pigments as an Untapped Resource in the Classroom and Beyond
- Lego Shaped Ice Cube Tray
- Bacterial physiology: Bacillus takes the temperature
- Microfluidic approaches for systems and synthetic biology.
- GreenPhylDB v2.0: comparative and functional genomics in plants.
- The roots of a new green revolution.
- The Kno: A giant double-screen tablet to replace giant textbooks
- NVIDIA Fermi-Class Quadro GPUs
- Homemade laser microscope reveals water's murky secrets
- Verbatim launches Clip-It USB drive
- Synthetic Biology Faculty position
- SynBio2010 course in Synthetic Biology at Cambridge
- Synthetic Biology worth $4.5B by 2015
- Naked Scientist interview
- Royal Society: Future Technologies
- 2nd-generation GM traits
- NYT article about iGEM2009
- Synthetic Biology at the Wellcome Trust
- Giant Plant Cells
- Glass microbiology
- Endnote X3
- LEGO-sized hole punch
- Glowing Toyama Squid USB Memory Stick
- Green Pins
- Bacterial rainbow
- Synthetic operon for violacein production
- Cambridge team wins Grand Prize for iGEM2009
- The scatalog: E. chromi, pigment and poo
- Grand Prize for Cambridge iGEM2009 team
- Cambridge presentation at the iGEM2009 Jamboree
- Wellcome Trust iGEM2010 studentships
- Cambridge iGEM2009 team
- Synthetic Biology Project
- The iGEM Project
- RS Interface SynBio issue
- steam-powered dragon tin toy
- Magcloud: On Demand Magazine Printing
- RAE Synthetic Biology Report 2009
- Arduino Mega
- Phytocomp - new computing tools for plant science
- Computational Biology at Microsoft Research in Cambridge
- Open source hardware 2008
- www.synbio.org.uk news feeds
- Cambridge Network News
- iGEM 2008: Novice Bioengineers
- Plastic Logic e-Reader
- High Speed Photography using the Arduino
- Visitor's Guide to Cambridge
- Graduate Studies at Cambridge
- Emergence: a foundation for Synthetic Biology in Europe
- Bacillus Standards Working Group Meeting 1
- SynBioStandards UK Network in Synthetic Biology
- NumberKey turns your iPhone into a numeric Keypad
- Toast Bandages
- Soap Grenade
- Swiss Chocolate Knife
- Papercraft Turkey Dinner
- Miracle Fruit Tablets
- Wilting flower dies as your energy use blooms
- tikitag: RFID for the masses
- Predatory bacterial swarm uses rippling motion to reach prey
- Leonard et al Engineering microbes
- CatCam
- KAUST-Cambridge AEA
- iGEM2008 Jamboree
- Optical microscopy techniques for plants
- Computer modeling of plant morphogenesis
- Image Analysis of Cells
- Teaching materials from the University of Cambridge
- Scientific Computing in Cambridge
- Cheaposcope
- Gallery of Plant Images
- BioBrick vectors for Bacillus subtilis
- Tools for Arabidopsis
Synthetic Biology and engineering of plant systems.
Synthetic Biology is an emerging field that employs engineering principles for constructing genetic systems. The approach is based on the use of well characterised and reusable components, and numerical models for the design of biological circuits – in a way that has become routine in other fields of engineering. This has proved a more robust way to construct novel regulatory networks in microbial systems, including synthetic oscillators, switches, logic gates, intercellular signaling systems and metabolic networks. Synthetic Biology is providing an conceptual and practical framework for the systematic engineering of gene expression and behaviour in microbes.
Synthetic Biology approaches show great potential for the engineering of multicellular systems.
(1) The greatest diversity of cell types and biochemical specialisation is found in multicellular systems,
(2) the molecular basis of cell fate determination is increasingly well understood, and
(3) it is feasible to consider creating new tissues or organs with specialized biosynthetic or storage functions by remodelling the distribution of existing cell types.
Of all multicellular organisms, plants are the obvious first target for this type of approach. Plants possess indeterminate and modular body plans, have a wide spectrum of biosynthetic activities, can be genetically manipulated, and are widely used in crop systems for production of biomass, food, polymers, drugs and fuels.