• Biology by Design: The Rise of Synthetic Biology
Prof. Walid M. El-Sharoud, PhD in Bacterial Physiology and Food Safety, The University of Reading (UK), Professor at Mansoura University, EGYPT.
Biological systems are complex and inaccessible for complete re-design or re-creation. While molecular biology techniques and biotechnology protocols have enabled, for instance, Escherichia coli to produce the insulin hormone, this genetic re-design is still of limited nature to the whole functionality of cells and would have a negative impact on the cellular metabolism. Is it possible to make cells act as biological factory of enzymes and other industrial products? A biological factory that operates under full control of humans programming it to do this and not to do that!! To confer such strict discipline in cells, we need to apply the engineering design principles and computing. And, that is what "Synthetic Biology" (SynBio) is striving to do!! This talk will present the idea of "SynBio" and how it works. It will also discuss how successful this science has been thus far and which challenges it is facing.
