Functional synthetic biology is an approach to managing the complexity of engineering biological systems, with the aim of avoiding predictable failures, increasing accessibility, reducing cost, and improving the quality of biotechnology products.
In order to achieve these ends, functional synthetic biology focuses on:
- descriptions of behavior over descriptions of structure
- predictability and flexibility over optimization
- risk reduction over novelty
A focus on behavior means a biological component's structure (e.g., genetic sequence) should be able to be changed and improved without damaging the functionality of a system that includes it.
A focus on predictability means identifying classes of “safe” changes that are unlikely to damage functionality, and a focus on flexibility means valuing the breadth of “safe” change possibilities when developing biological components.
A focus on risk reduction means recognizing that avoiding the myriad different possible failure modes of biological systems requires myriad different forms of expertise. This, in turn, means valuing the capture of such expertise in well-curated information about components and in automation tools.
Together, these approaches allow a community of synthetic biologists to more effectively share successes and avoid failures.
The functional synthetic biology manifesto is a joint creation of the people listed in CONTRIBUTORS.md.
If you have questions or concerns, please raise them in the issue tracker.
If you have contributions that you would like to offer, please also use the issue tracker or make a pull request to incorporate your contribution.