What are Synthetic Biology and Systems Biology?
What are Synthetic Biology and Systems Biology?
The characterization of global circuits of organisms and the engineering of their capacity to produce chemicals derived from biomass is going to provide new alternatives for the petrochemical, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry, among others. More importantly, the availability of biofuels and bio-based chemicals will assure the developing world the bricks of a sustainable society.
Synthetic Biology aims to design and construct new parts, devices and biological systems and to re-design of existing natural biological systems for human purposes. Synthetic Biology uses well-defined parts crafted by the evolution process to build artificial systems that can perform new functions.
Systems Biology aims to model and understand organisms in their totality, characterizing the dynamic functional inter-relation among their parts (genes, RNAs, proteins, metabolites, regulatory networks, environmental perception, adaptation mechanisms etc.).
