Intertech:Synthetic Biology course

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We have decided to prepare a course on 'Introduction on Synthetic Biology'.

(if you want to learn about more courses around the world go here)

The aim of this course is diverse.
 * First, is a way to organize the series of talks and lectures that we think should be taken by a given iGEM participant.
 * Second, is a way to gather educational material focused on people that want to have a broader perspective of Synthetic Biology.
 * Third, is a perfect starting point to whoever wants to take a step on this field.

The syllabus of this course is divided in three parts. There is a group of topics that need to be known by biologists (or 'life science' people), then a bunch of topics that need to be known by engineers (or 'technical' people) and, finally, some lectures on 'what' is syntehtic biology and some examples of it. {| cellspacing="2px" cellpadding="0" border="0" style="padding: 0px; width: 800px; color: #000000; background-color: #ffffff;"
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Part 1 Training for biologists
Ordinary differential equations
 * Introduction
 * Basic concepts to understand an ODE
 * Description and properties of ODE
 * Solving ODE
 * Vector spaces
 * Dynamic systems

Control theory
 * Introduction
 * Types od controllers
 * Block diagram
 * Example of control
 * Laplace transform and transfer function
 * Frequency domain
 * Examples

Electronics
 * Introduction
 * Boolean algebras
 * Logical gates
 * Representation of boolean functions
 * Karnaugh maps

Error Theory
 * Introduction to measurement theory
 * Error theroy description
 * Types of errors
 * Evaluation of the error in an experimental measurement
 * Minimal square fit
 * Obtaining relations from experimental data

Programming in Matlab
 * Introduction to programming languages
 * Basic MatLab operations
 * Programming in Matlab
 * Solving ODE with Matlab


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Part 2 Training for engineers
Cell
 * Cell, definition
 * Basic elements
 * Eukaryotes
 * Prokaryotes
 * Metabolism

Flow of genetic information
 * Elements
 * Nucelic acid – DNA and RNA
 * Amino acid – proteins
 * Central Dogma of Molecular Biology
 * Dogma, revisited
 * Horizontal transference

Genetic regulation
 * DNA regulation
 * RNA regulation
 * Protein regulation
 * Global regulatory mechanisms:

Communication with environment
 * Signal transduction
 * Signal
 * Receptor
 * Transducer
 * Actuator
 * Examples

Kinetic Chemistry
 * Definitions
 * Law of mass action
 * Enzyme-catalyzed reactions
 * Hill equation: allosterism
 * Hill equation in gene modelling

(Basic) Laboratory Techniques (of molecular biology of bacteria)
 * DNA cloning
 * Polymerase Chain Reaction
 * Gel electrophoresis
 * Reading and writing DNA
 * Molecular hybridization
 * rewriting DNA: mutations
 * arrays
 * }

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Part 3 Training in Synthetic Biology
Introduction to Synthetic Biology
 * Introduction
 * Synthetic Biology evolution
 * Some examples
 * Biology and Engineering. the paradigm of Synthetic biology
 * Systems Biology work
 * Synthetic gene regulatory systems

Standards
 * Building a composable DNA library
 * Registry
 * Parts
 * Signal carrier
 * Modularity
 * Looking for abstraction
 * Abstraction hierarchy

 Basic Synthetic Biology Circuits

Synthetic Biology works
 * Toggle switch
 * Repressilator
 * Counting machine - ETH iGEM 2005
 * Memory device - ETH iGEM 2007
 * Cell free system - Imperial iGEM 2007
 * Synthetic pattern formation
 * Artifitial quorum sensing
 * Artemisinin production
 * }