Duration: 47:43

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Synthetic Biology is an emerging discipline that is providing a conceptual framework for engineering biological devices based on the principles of standardisation, modularity and abstraction. To become a widely applied engineering discipline it will be critical for the newly designed biological devices to function in a robust and predictable fashion. This project is involved in the development of a microfluidic robot scientist that will address these limitations. We are integrating computational hypotheses with automatic generation of experimental trials within a microfluidic device. The use of droplet microfluidics reduces reagent volumes and increases throughput. The strategy maximises the efficiency of convergence to optimal values as applied to the engineering of proteins with new ligand binding specificities. This approach will enable the design and empirical testing of robust BioPart and device-level Synthetic Biology designs, which will have general applicability. Specifically we will design novel ligand-binding for the LuxR family of bacterial quorum sensing proteins to enable the rational engineering of orthogonal bacterial signalling pathways. The project is being conducted as an interdisciplinary collaboration between computing, bioscience, chemical and bio-engineering at Imperial College London as part of the work of the Institute of Systems and Synthetic Biology (IoSSB).