Resumen de Engineering principles for synthetic biology: from concept to practice
Synthetic Biology is a relatively new and multi-faceted interdisciplinary emergent field of research that combines biology with technology in novel and exciting ways. One of its main branches aims to see living systems engineered in a rational and straightforward bottom-up approach, like in other engineering disciplines. The inherent complex nature of living systems turns them into a difficult and challenging substrate where to apply common engineering principles such as standardization, abstraction and modularity. Efforts to overcome these limitations and adapt such principles for working upon living systems have been devoted, though yet with relative success. The aim of this Thesis is to critically explore what is Synthetic Biology and how far it is from a veritable engineering discipline. In this Thesis, we first present a review that thoroughly explores and discusses this scenario. Then, we present two works that shall contribute to this ambitious and hard goal. First, within the context of standardization, we address the need for better genetic parts characterization by providing an example of a biologically grounded framework inspired by classical enzymology theory. Second, and in relation with the principle of modularity, we provide a theoretical framework, in this case inspired by the Ohm’s law of electric theory, that describes the unintended coupling of the coexisting genetic loads within a given host cell due to sharing a limited common pool of machinery and resources. Together, both works contribute, on one hand, to increase our understanding of the organizing principles of living systems, and on the other hand, to improve how engineering principles are applied to synthetic circuit design. Finally, these works emphasize the need to find better experimentally backed-up theoretical frameworks or models that should allow us to jump from the current time-consuming, trial-error and ad hoc Synthetic Biology to a well-established engineering discipline as fruitful and efficient with the living systems realm as other engineering disciplines are.
