20.20(S13):Advanced topics

20.385: Advanced Topics in Synthetic Biology

Assignments

Homework dropbox is here

Part 1: Readings Paper 1 (10%) Paper 2 (15%) Response record (20%): your thoughts about the papers you don't present. Participation in class discussions (5%): your thoughtful questions and ideas during the presentations of others Instructions for these assignment are here

Part 2: Team Mentoring Progress and Mentoring Reports (30%): one page summaries of your freshman team's work and dynamics Team's project average (15%): based on the grade for the 3 major assignments submitted by your freshman team Instructor Leverage (5%): discretionary adjustment by NK Instructions for these assignments are here

Reading Schedule

Discussions will be 1 hour long during Wednesday 2-5 studio block

16-220

TOPIC	DATE	Discussion leader(s)	Discussion paper(s)	Related paper(s) to enjoy
Preview of 20.385	Week 1: Wed Feb 6	Natalie Kuldell	preview of 20.385	Factory of Life Witze A [1] Two ‘What if' experiments Ptashne M PMID: 15055587 Build Artificial Brent R PMID: 15055588
Parts™	Week 2: Wed Feb 13	Natalie Kuldell ppt is here	Turning lambda Cro into a transcriptional activator Bushman FD, Ptashne M.Cell. (1988) Jul 15;54(2):191-7. PMID: 2968842	Synthetic biology devices as tools for metabolic engineering Shiue E, Prather K. Biochemical Engineering Journal (2012) 65:82–89 doi:10.1016/j.bej.2012.04.006
DNA fine-tuning + evolution	Week 3: Wed Feb 20		Rational Diversification of a Promoter Providing Fine-Tuned Expression and Orthogonal Regulation for Synthetic Biology Blount BA, Weenink T, Vasylechko S, Ellis T. PLoS ONE (2012) 7(3): e33279. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033279	Directed evolution as a powerful synthetic biology tool Cobb RE, Sun N, Zhao H. Methods (2012) Mar 23. PMID: 22465795
Transcription-based Logic Devices	Week 4: Wed Feb 27		Genetic programs constructed from layered logic gates in single cells Moon TS, Lou C, Tamsir A, Stanton BC, Voigt CA Nature (2012) 491: 249–253 doi:10.1038/nature11516	Engineering modular and orthogonal genetic logic gates for robust digital-like synthetic biology Wang B, et al. Nat. Commun. (2011) 2 : 508 doi: 10.1038/ncomms1516
RNA Engineering	Week 5: Wed Mar 6		De novo automated design of small RNA circuits for engineering synthetic riboregulation in living cells. Rodrigo G, Landrain TE, Jaramillo A. PNAS(2012) 109(38):15271-6. PMID: 22949707	RNA synthetic biology Isaacs FJ, Dwyer DJ, Collins JJ. Nat Biotechnol. (2006) 24(5):545-54. PMID: 16680139
Engineering Biology	Week 6: Wed Mar 13 before 3 ideas presentations		Towards practical, high-capacity, low-maintenance information storage in synthesized DNA Goldman N et al. Nature (2013) doi:10.1038/nature11875	A fully decompressed synthetic bacteriophage øX174 genome assembled and archived in yeast Jaschke PR et al. Virology(2012)434(2):278-84. doi: 10.1016/j.virol.2012.09.020
SynBio for Science	Week 7: Wed Mar 20		Synthetic biology challenges long-held hypotheses in translation, codon bias and transcription Forster AC. Biotechnol J. (2012) 7(7):835-45. doi: 10.1002/biot.201200002	Five hard truths for synthetic biology Kwok R. Nature(2010) 463(7279):288-90. doi: 10.1038/463288a
Spring Break Mar 26-30			No class all week
DNA construction and editing technologies	Week 8: Wed Apr 3		Knockout mice created by TALEN-mediated gene targeting. Sung YH et al. Nat Biotechnol (2013) 31(1):23-4. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2477	Multiplex Genome Engineering Using CRISPR/Cas Systems Cong L et al. Science (2013) Jan 3. PMID: 23287718
Cell Physiology	Week 9: Wed Apr 10 before tech spec review		Shared control of gene expression in bacteria by transcription factors and global physiology of the cell Berthoumieux S et alMol Syst Biol (2013) 9:634 doi: 10.1038/msb.2012.70	A complete mass-spectrometric map of the yeast proteome applied to quantitative trait analysis Picotti P et al.Nature (2013) Jan 20. doi: 10.1038/nature11835
Chassis	Week 10: Wed Apr 17		Towards a metabolic engineering strain "commons": An Escherichia coli platform strain for ethanol production Woodruff LB, May BL, Warner JR, Gill RT. Biotechnol Bioeng (2013) Jan 15. doi: 10.1002/bit.24840	Contextualizing context for synthetic biology--identifying causes of failure of synthetic biological systems Cardinale S, Arkin AP.Biotechnol J(2012) 7(7):856-66. doi: 10.1002/biot.201200085
Programming in the Noise	Week 11: Wed Apr 24		Iterative plug-and-play methodology for constructing and modifying synthetic gene networks Litcofsky KD et al. Nat Methods(2012) 9(11):1077-80. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2205	A sensing array of radically coupled genetic ‘biopixels’ Prindle A et al. Nature(2012)481:39–44 doi:10.1038/nature10722
Metabolic Engineering	Week 12: Wed May 1		Metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli using synthetic small regulatory RNAs Na D et al. Nat Biotechnol (2013) Jan 20. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2461	Synthetic protein scaffolds provide modular control over metabolic fluxDueber JE et al. Nat Biotechnol (2009) 27(8):753-9. doi: 10.1038/nbt.1557
Systems & System Ecology	Week 13: Wed May 8		Synthetic chromosome arms function in yeast and generate phenotypic diversity by design Dymond JS et al. Nature (2011) 477: 471–476 doi:10.1038/nature10403	Engineered bidirectional communication mediates a consensus in a microbial biofilm consortium Brenner K PNAS (2007) 104(44):17300-17304 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0704256104
Property rights in synthetic biology	Week 14: Wed May 15 before final presentations		Synthetic biology: caught between property rights, the public domain, and the commons Rai A, Boyle J. PLoS Biol. (2007)5(3):e58 PMID: 17355173	Patents and Translational Research in Genomics Kaye J, Hawkins N, and Taylor J. Nature Biotech (2007) 25(7): 739–741.doi: 10.1038/nbt0707-739.
Safety!	Week 14: Wed May 16 before final presentations		Managing the unimaginable. Regulatory responses to the challenges posed by synthetic biology and synthetic genomics. Samuel GN, Selgelid MJ, Kerridge I. EMBO reports (2009) 10(1):7-11. DOI: 10.1038/embor.2008.232	Darwin’s Surprise: Why are evolutionary biologists bringing back extinct deadly viruses? Michael Specter New Yorker article