- Synthetic biology ×
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Bringing together different communities to answer common questions
November 13, 2019
On 31 July–2 August 2019, researchers from all over the world gathered in Newcastle for Designer Biology 2019 - the biannual conference of the Synthetic Biology community. As Microbiology Society Champions at the host institution for the event, Newcastle University, we were delighted to be part of the organising committee.
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Special section: Synthetic Biology
July 9, 2013
This month, the Society for General Microbiology’s journal Microbiology contains a special section dedicated to synthetic biology – a field that applies engineering principals, such as mathematical modelling or modularisation, to biological research. Although in its infancy, synthetic biology offers researchers the opportunity to understand how biological systems work by piecing them together from their constituent parts, and may allow scientists to design organisms that perform a bespoke function. Some early examples of these organisms already exist, with a team developing a strain of B. subtilis that can cheaply and safely detect arsenic in drinking water, a common contaminant of wells in South Asia.