Hardware intro

Life hackers seek new tools Field aims to enlist techniques from molecular biology to attack fundamental challenges. Published online 14 June 2011 | Nature | doi:10.1038/474261a Erika Check Hayden Real-time observation of yeast genes tagged to fluoresce when transcribed into RNA could help synthetic biologists to design better...

SBI forum examines prospects for synbio-based industrial revolution From: http://synbio.berkeley.edu What can society expect from synthetic biology? A distinguished group of academic and industry experts probed this question at the inaugural forum of the Synthetic Biology Institute, on April 25 at UC Berkeley. Their answers homed in on a common theme: Synbio faces serious hurdles and is not without risk; it could also spark revolutionary changes similar to that of the micro-electronics revolution of the last century. The...

Bio coder: Christopher Voigt, an assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco, is developing software to speed up designing microbes that produce biofuels and other useful chemicals. 
Credit: Technology Review COMPUTING Software for Programming Microbes A simpler way to modify microbes could help produce biofuels and drugs efficiently. From: Technology Review WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2011 BY KATHERINE BOURZAC
Genetically modified microbes could perform many useful jobs, from making biofuels and drugs, to cleaning up toxic waste....

  How a handful of MIT electrical engineers pioneered synthetic biology. MAY/JUNE 2011BY ANNE TRAFTON Picture: Bottles of growth medium for bacteria are stored in the lab refrigerator of MIT synthetic biologist Randy Rettberg, whose iGEM teams engineer E. coli to express novel traits. Credit: Asia Kepka   One day in 1998, Randy Rettberg '70 went to visit an old friend, Tom Knight '69, SM '79, PhD '83, a research scientist in the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT. Rettberg, who had worked in the computer industry for 30 years, was surprised to see that Knight, a self-described...