Introductory Papers for General Audiences
Research Papers in Synthetic Biology
Review Papers of Interest to Synthetic Biology
Introduction to Synthetic Biology
Dan Ferber. 2004. Microbes Made to Order. Science. Vol. 303: 158 - 161. (Good general overview)
Jeff Hasty, David McMillen, and J. J. Collins. 2002. Engineered Gene Circuits. Nature. Vol. 420: 224 - 230. (Scholarly Review Paper)
Philip Ball. 2004. Starting from Scratch. Nature. Vol. 431: 624 - 626. (Good general overview)
Editors of Nature. 2004. Futures of Artificial Life. Nature. Vol. 431: 613. (Editorial that addresses ethical considerations)
Steven Benner and Michael Sismour. 2005. Synthetic Biology. Nature Reviews Genetics. Vol. 6: 533 - 543. (History of synthetic biology and the interface with synthetic chemistry)
A. Malcolm Campbell. 2005. Meeting Report: Synthetic Biology Jamboree for Undergraduates. Cell Biology Education. Vol. 4: 19 - 23. (Explanation of friendly competition for students who design and build synthetic biological devices)
2005 Summary of Christina Smolke's research with antiswitches.Engineering & Science. No. 4.
Baker, et al. Engineering Life: Building a FAB for Biology. Scientific American. June 2006. 44-51.
2006 Scientist of the Year. Jay Keasley - synthetic biologist. Discover. December, 2006.
Arti Rai and James Boyle. 2007. Synthetic Biology: Caught between Property Rights, the Public Domain, and the Commons. PLoS Biology. 5(3): 389- 393.
Research Papers in Synthetic Biology
Robert T. Batey, Sunny D. Gilbert, and Rebecca K. Montange. 2004. Structure of a Natural Guanine-responsive Riboswitch Complexed with a Metabolite Hypoxanthine. Nature. Vol. 432. 411 - 415. (Basic Research Paper)
- News Summary of Batey et al. 2004. (Summary of paper above)
Laising Yen et al. 2004. Exogenous Controlof Mammalian Gene Expression through Modulation of RNA Self-cleavage. Nature. Vol. 431: 471 - 476. (Basic Research Paper)
Yina Kuang, Israel Biran, and David R. Walt. 2004. Simultaneously Monitoring Gene Expression Kinetics and Genetic Noise in Single Cells by Optical Well Arrays. Analytical Chemistry. Vol. 76: 6282 - 6286. (Analysis of two promoters)
Sara Hooshangi, Stephan Thiberge, and Ron Weiss. 2005. Ultrasensitivity and noise propagation in a synthetic transcriptional cascade. PNAS. 102(10): 3581–3586. (Basic Research Paper)
Bayer, Travis S. and Christina D . Smolke. 2005. Programmable ligand-controlled riboregulators of eukaryotic gene expression. Nature Biotechnology. 23 (3): 337 - 343. (Antiswithces that turn off or on mRNA translation, regulated by amptamer binding ligands)
- Isaacs, Farren J. and James J. Collins. 2005. Plug-and-play with RNA. Nature Biotechnology. 23 (3): 306 -307. (Commentary on Bayer & Smolke, 2005.)
A synthetic gene–metabolic oscillator. 2005. Eileen Fung, Wilson W. Wong, Jason K. Suen, Thomas Bulter, Sun-gu Lee & James C. Liao. Nature. Vol. 435: 118 - 122. (using metabolic flux as a control factor in
system-wide oscillation)
Review Papers Related to Synthetic Biology
Jennifer A. Doudna. 2000. Structural genomics of RNA. Nature Structural Biology. Structural Genomics Supplement. November, 2000. pages 954 - 956. (The 3D shape and function of RNAs)
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