Synthetic biology at the interface of functional genomics

Abstract

Functional genomics is considered a powerful tool that helps understand the relation between an organism's genotype and possible phenotypes. Volumes of data generated on several 'omics' platforms have revealed the network complexities underlying biological processes. Systems and synthetic biology have garnered much attention because of the ability to infer and comprehend the uncertainties associated with such complexities. Also, part-wise characterization of the network components (e.g. DNA, RNA, protein) has rendered an engineering perspective in life sciences to build modular and functional devices. This approach can be used to combat one of the many concerns of the world, i.e. in the area of biomedical translational research by designing and constructing novel therapeutic devices to intervene network perturbation in a diseased state to transform to a healthy state.

Keywords: functional genomics; infectious disease; mathematical modeling; synthetic biology.