Living cells are truly amazing things. They created the oxygen we breathe and the fossil fuels that power our world. They provided the organic compounds that form the basis of modern drugs and materials. They feed us, live within our bodies, and protect us from other cells and viruses. They can self-organize. They can learn. They are us.

It’s clear that the scope of what biological systems could do is enormous. Among the areas that could most obviously benefit from them are health care, chemical and materials production, environmental remediation, and energy. However, most of the systems that would be useful in these areas are unlikely to occur naturally. We probably won’t stumble upon a naturally evolved cell capable of serving as an artificial blood substitute, for example, or on one that harnesses sunlight as transportation fuel. These systems must be engineered, and the intellectual domain associated with such endeavors is genetic engineering.

Nevertheless, engineering biological systems on the level of complexity of natural ones is far beyond the state of the art. Transitioning the field to a more systems-level thinking is the essence of Synthetic Biology, a movement within genetic engineering that seeks to convert the field from what today is a technically challenging art form to something more akin to the traditional engineering disciplines (civil, chemical, electrical, mechanical, software, etc.) which have well defined tools, approaches, theories, and practices for designing and constructing new works.

The Anderson lab approach to synthetic biology is to target specific applications that challenge our conceptual and experimental toolkit and construct the foundational technologies needed to complete them. Follow the links at right for a more detailed description of synthetic biology and descriptions of projects in the lab.