Josh
Epstein
Drew
Endy
--------------------------
Drew
Endy
Title: Engineering Biological Systems |
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Abstract: Biology is going through a fundamental transition – from
preexisting, natural, and evolving systems, to synthetic,
engineered,
and disposable systems. Here, I will discuss (i) our ‘refactoring’ of
a natural biological system, bacteriophage T7, (ii) the adaptation
and
application of three past lessons – standardization,
abstraction, and
decoupling – that seem relevant to the engineering
of biology today,
(iii) how solving the problems of error detection and correction
in
reproducing machines might lead to interesting compromises
in system
architecture, and (iv) some of the social, political, and
risk
opportunities and pitfalls worth considering as we begin
to
systematically engineer the living world.
Bio: Drew Endy (http://mit.edu/endy/)
studied civil, environmental,
and biochemical engineering at Lehigh University and Thayer
School,
Dartmouth College. From 1998 through 2001 he helped to start
the
Molecular Sciences Institute, an independent not-for-profit
biological
research lab in Berkeley, CA. In 2002, he started a group
as a fellow
in the Department of Biology and the Biological Engineering
Division
at MIT; he joined the MIT faculty in 2004. Endy co-founded
the MIT
Synthetic Biology working group and the Registry of Standard
Biological Parts, and organized the First International Conference
on
Synthetic Biology. Endy and colleagues taught the 2003 and
2004 MIT Synthetic Biology labs organized the 2004 Synthetic
Biology
competition, a five-school course that enabled students to
work
together to design and build engineered biological systems,
and are
now organizing the 2005 Intercollegiate Genetically Engineered
Machine
(iGEM) competition. Endy's research focuses on the engineering
of
integrated biological systems and error detection in reproducing
machines.
Press Links:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/mit.html
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0009FCA4-1A8F-1085-94F483414B7F0000
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