What is Synthetic Biology?
Synthetic biology is an interdisciplinary field that combines principles from biology, engineering, computer science, and other disciplines to design and construct new biological parts, devices, and systems. It involves the manipulation of living organisms and their components, such as genes, proteins, and signaling networks, to create new functions or improve existing biological processes.
Applications of synthetic biology span many areas, including medicine (e.g., engineered bacteriophages and immune cells for treating infection and cancer, engineered bacteria for disease detection and biocontainment), agriculture (e.g., crops with improved traits), and environmental science (e.g., microbes that degrade pollutants). Increasingly, synthetic biology also enables the engineering of complex human systems, such as stem cell-derived organoids and optogenetically patterned tissues, providing powerful platforms for studying development, regeneration, and disease. Overall, synthetic biology holds great promise for addressing global challenges in human health, sustainability, and food security.
At the Institute for Synthetic Biology at the University of Pittsburgh, research spans a broad range of engineered biological systems, from microbial platforms to mammalian cells and tissues, while training students in genetic circuit design, optogenetics, genome editing, protein engineering, genetic code expansion, and computational modeling. Labs at the Institute for Synthetic Biology at the University of Pittsburgh are located in The Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, the College of Engineering, the School of Medicine, and the Hillman Cancer Center. They span a variety of departments, such as Bioengineering, Biological Sciences, Cell Biology, Computational and Systems Biology, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Chemistry.