Biological Circuit Design

[outlace]

Highly relevant book: Modeling Life by Alan Garfinkel. Assumes only knowledge of algebra and teaches the foundational skills of differential equation modeling. Best book I bought this year.

[kkylin]

If you're interested in this, you may also be interested in BioBricks (https://biobricks.org/) and iGEM (https://igem.org/).

[brcmthrowaway]

Can anything be made out of this?

[throwup238]

The individual techniques described in the class are in use all over the pharmaceutical and biotech industries (especially biosensors) but we're still in the early stages of biological circuits, akin to where electronics was right before the vacuum tube was invented. We've got stuff that operates sort of like basic logic elements like relay switches did in electronics, but we're far from designing any complex integrated circuits.

I think this point from the introduction says it best:

> - From a more practical point of view, we have a very limited ability to construct, test, and compare designs. Even with recent developments such as CRISPR, our ability to rapidly and precisely produce cells with well-defined genomes remains limited compared to what is possible in more advanced disciplines. (This situation is rapidly improving!)

[epgui]

Yes, just google "biological computer". There's been research on this for decades, and there are many promising therapeutic avenues for many pathologies. And people have built real-world toy biological computers that do cool things.

[vg_head]

I'm curious if there's overlap between this and P System: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_system

[dekhn]

I sure hope this is a graduate-level course.

[throwup238]

BE150 is sort of inbetween: https://www.catalog.caltech.edu/current/2023-24/department/B...

"Advanced undergraduate" or "beginning graduate." It's Caltech though so the distinction is a bit meaningless.

[j7ake]

The difference between graduate and undergraduate level is that graduate is often easier (ie less work load) than undergrad…

This is because graduate students main focus is their research, and courses are a distant second.

[Metacelsus]

It looks like it is. I took a similar one at MIT.

[max_]

What do u mean "graduate level"?