Spring 2014 Synthetic Biology
CH391L: Synthetic Biology (Spring 2014)
Mondays 2-5 PM MBB 2.456
Unique #: 53230
Instructors:
- Prof. Jeffrey Barrick <jbarrick AT cm DOT utexas PERIOD edu>
- Dr. Dennis Mishler <dennis PERIOD mishler AT gmail DOT com>
Course web page: The course web site on SynBioCyc.org will host course handouts, readings, and assignments.
CH391L Spring 2014 Course Syllabus
Previous year's websites:
Useful links:
Motivation
The purpose of this course is to become familiar with the techniques, biological parts, accomplishments, problems, and challenges of synthetic biology. For the most part, we will focus on E. coli and yeast.
Participants will be expected to individually contribute to OWW pages describing the history, development, and implementation details of engineered parts and organisms from the scientific literature. As the course progress, students will create a proposal as part of a group with specific experimental and modeling details for using synthetic biology to solve an existing problem with technological or societal impact.
Assignments
Coursework will consist of in-class oral presentations on scientific papers or research proposals and a "written" component consisting of Wiki page edits on OpenWetWare. All participants in the course will be expected to provide feedback concerning the content of presentations and the content of Wiki pages.
Grading Rubric for Wiki Pages, Presentations, and Participation
Grading Rubric for Final Project
Topics
Week 1: Introduction
Week 2: What is a part?
- BioBricks and Restriction Enzymes (undergrad)
- Biological Parts and the iGEM Registry (undergrad)
- CAD systems - TinkerCell
Week 3: Assembling the parts
Week 4: Methods of Part Creation, Prospecting, Selection, and Optimization
Week 5: Parts I: Chassis
- Host organisms and Plasmids/origins
- Selectable and Counter Selectable Markers (undergrad)
- Biocontainment
Week 6: Parts II: Basics of Gene Expression
Week 7: Parts III: Reporter Genes and Gene Regulation
Week 8: Parts IV: Environmental sensing and responses
Week 9: Systems I: Circuits
Week 10: Genome Editing Techniques
Week 11: Systems II: Whole Organisms
Week 12: Systems III: Metabolic Engineering
Week 13: Systems IV: Synthetic Ecologies and Miscellaneous Topics
Ideas for Topics
- Use COPASI to model circuits (like repressilator) and switches, changing parameters to tune behavior.