Aldulijan Ibrahim, Beal Jacob, Billerbeck Sonja, Bouffard Jeff, Chambonnier Gaël, Ntelkis Nikolaos, Guerreiro Isaac, Holub Martin, Ross Paul, Selvarajah Vinoo, Sprent Noah, Vidal Gonzalo, Vignoni Alejandro
Systems Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology, 1 Castle Point Terrace, Hoboken, 07030, NJ, USA.
Intelligent Software & Systems, Raytheon BBN Technologies, 10 Moulton Street, Cambridge, 02138, MA, USA.
Synth Biol (Oxf). 2023 Apr 8;8(1):ysad006. doi: 10.1093/synbio/ysad006. eCollection 2023.
Synthetic biologists have made great progress over the past decade in developing methods for modular assembly of genetic sequences and in engineering biological systems with a wide variety of functions in various contexts and organisms. However, current paradigms in the field entangle sequence and functionality in a manner that makes abstraction difficult, reduces engineering flexibility and impairs predictability and design reuse. Functional Synthetic Biology aims to overcome these impediments by focusing the design of biological systems on function, rather than on sequence. This reorientation will decouple the engineering of biological devices from the specifics of how those devices are put to use, requiring both conceptual and organizational change, as well as supporting software tooling. Realizing this vision of Functional Synthetic Biology will allow more flexibility in how devices are used, more opportunity for reuse of devices and data, improvements in predictability and reductions in technical risk and cost.
在过去十年中，合成生物学家在开发基因序列模块化组装方法以及在各种环境和生物体中设计具有多种功能的生物系统方面取得了巨大进展。然而，该领域目前的范式以一种使抽象变得困难、降低工程灵活性并损害可预测性和设计重用性的方式将序列和功能纠缠在一起。功能合成生物学旨在通过将生物系统的设计重点放在功能而非序列上，来克服这些障碍。这种重新定位将使生物装置的工程设计与这些装置的使用方式细节脱钩，这既需要概念和组织上的变革，也需要支持性的软件工具。实现功能合成生物学的这一愿景将使装置的使用方式更具灵活性，增加装置和数据重用的机会，提高可预测性，并降低技术风险和成本。
