"Engineering Gene Networks: Integrating Synthetic Biology & Systems Biology"

Jim Collins, Center for BioDynamics and Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University

In this talk, we describe how techniques from nonlinear dynamics and molecular biology can be utilized to model, design and construct synthetic gene regulatory networks. We present examples in which we integrate the development of a theoretical model with the construction of an experimental system. We also discuss the implications of synthetic gene networks for biotechnology, biomedicine and biocomputing. In addition, we present integrated computational-experimental approaches that enable construction of first-order quantitative models of gene-protein regulatory networks using only steady-state expression measurements and no prior information on the network structure or function.