SURF 2019: Evolutionary Stability of Genetic Circuits
2019 SURF project description
- Mentor: Richard Murray
- Co-mentor: Andy Halleran
Evolutionary Stability of Genetic Circuits Synthetic biology’s heralded inception promised revolutions in practically every field, from agriculture and manufacturing to medicine. However, all synthetic biology faces an uphill battle: synthetic circuits require host resources, inevitably slowing host growth. Therefore, mutants that disable the synthetic circuit grow faster than cells faithfully carrying out the programmed function. This causes mutants to outcompete engineered cells, bringing an end to the synthetic program (Figure 1). This universal feature of synthetic biology imposes a limit on the lifetime of programmed cellular functions. Improving the lifetime of synthetic circuits is of fundamental importance to the field of synthetic biology. [[File:/Users/andrewhalleran/Desktop/Screen Shot 2018-12-10 at 8.19.53 PM.png]
