BioBuilder

Preface

This book began with a relatively modest mission, namely to support the growing BioBuilder community, the teachers and students around the country and the world who are learning to engineer biology. BioBuilding is a challenging endeavor, and we heard over and over that a book like this would help. So here it is. We hope it’s helpful. We hope you like it.

We’ve written for a non-scientist, non-engineer reader. Importantly, though, the questions that motivate the content are the very hard questions that synthetic biologists wrestle with daily. How can cells be engineered in a rational way? Is it possible to ensure reliable behaviors? What can we learn as we approach life science with an engineer’s toolkit?

Who Should Read This Book

We hope a wide range of readers will find this book useful. Our writing began with teachers in mind, since these are the individuals we’ve come to know through the BioBuilder program. They have been enthusiastically bringing this content into their biology and biotechnology classrooms around the country and throughout the world. Early feedback we got on the book made us realize that teachers wanted to share the book directly with their students, and so the teacher’s manual we’d originally envisioned soon morphed into a resource that students and teachers can use together.

We think our book now meets the needs of many curious readers and all kinds of learners. Our intended audience includes high school and college instructors, students active ...