IGEM:IMPERIAL/2006/project/Oscillator/project browser/Full System

 Specifications Design Modelling Implementation Testing/Validation  

Motivations

 * Oscillators are a fundamental building block in traditional engineering applications (i.e. computers, radio, clocks), as well as a recurrent motif in many biological systems (i.e.circadian rhythm, menstrual cycle).
 * We intend to build a generic and modular synthetic biological oscillator that can become a fundamental building block in future synthetic biological applications.
 * Previous oscillators have been attempted (such as the Repressilator by Elowitz and Leibler in 2000) but they often share the following problems:
 * Noisy and Unstable (due to stochastic molecular events at the single cell level, cell-cell variability, cell division)
 * Damping (i.e.with cell-cell asynchrony)
 * Inflexible (i.e. lack of control over amplitude and frequency)
 * No easy connectivity (hard to integrate into larger systems)


 * Based on these past limitations, we have defined the specifications for our oscillator.

Open issues

 * In electronic, the stability of the oscillations is a key factor, but the profile of the ouput signal is also an important property of an oscillator. There is an important variety of output profiles used in electronic (harmonic, square-wave, triangle-wave). Sometimes, for a given application a given profile is required. read more>>
 * Due to biological variability, getting a stable behavior might be challenging.

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