A pressing open problem in synthetic biology is to guarantee predetermined performance levels of synthetic circuits and networks. The targeted breakthrough of this project is to  achieve real-time feedback control of populations of living cells. An internal feedback control mechanism will be developed to orchestrate the dynamics of a synthetically engineered cell population. The strategy will be implemented and tested in a novel microfluidics setup and designed using BSim, computer modelling software for in-silico simulations of bacterial cell populations. It is expected that the proposed strategy will open the possibility of tightly regulating the expression of specific genes in bacteria and yeast cells and have a huge impact in a number of applications such as waste remediation and biofuels.

 

The movies above show BSim in action. On the left, a bacterial population of genetic oscillators start off with random initial condition, but become synchronisation through communication using a diffusible chemical that is produced and sensed by all the cells. In the end you see all cells oscillating in union. For further information, see this paper. On the right is a model of travelling waves present in a population of bacterial oscillators that communicate through chemical signalling. For further information see this research paper (courtesy of Petros Mina). 

Project lead: Professor Mario di Bernardo (control theory, dynamical systems, computational biology)

Project team: Professor Claire Grierson (biology); Professor Nigel Savery (transcription regulation, molecular biology) and Dr Lucia Marucci (modelling and synthetic biology)