Paper2002
Systems Biology: A Brief Overview
Hiroaki Kitano
Argues that biology's next advances will come from treating cells and organisms as systems defined by structure and dynamics, not from cataloguing genes and proteins alone.
Systems & Synthetic Biology
Modelling life as a network, then engineering it.
10 topics · 12 curated works
Topics
- 01Foundations & Overviews2
- 02Metabolic Networks1
- 03Gene Regulatory Networks1
- 04Network Motifs1
- 05Mathematical Models of Cells1
- 06Synthetic Gene Circuits2
- 07Directed Evolution1
- 08Biosensors1
- 09Minimal Genomes1
- 10Biosafety & Biosecurity1
Reading in Systems & Synthetic Biology
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Systems Biology: A Brief Overview
Hiroaki Kitano · 2002
Argues that biology's next advances will come from treating cells and organisms as systems defined by structure and dynamics, not from cataloguing…
Then
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
Summary Statement of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules
Paul Berg et al. · 1975
Proposes voluntary containment guidelines and a moratorium on the riskiest experiments, an unusual case of scientists collectively pausing their own…
+1 more at this level
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Primary sources and full treatments.
A Modification of the Hodgkin-Huxley Equations Applicable to Purkinje Fibre Action and Pacemaker Potentials
Denis Noble · 1962
Adapts a nerve-cell electrical model to reproduce the heart's own pacemaker rhythm, producing the first mathematical model to simulate a whole cell's…
+8 more at this level
12 works
Paper1975
Summary Statement of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules
Paul Berg et al.
Proposes voluntary containment guidelines and a moratorium on the riskiest experiments, an unusual case of scientists collectively pausing their own new technique until its hazards could be assessed.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate
Talk2015
Synthetic Life: Could We? Should We?
The Royal Institution
Examines what building an organism from designed components would actually require, and argues the hard limit is our incomplete account of which genes a minimal cell cannot do without.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate
Paper1962
A Modification of the Hodgkin-Huxley Equations Applicable to Purkinje Fibre Action and Pacemaker Potentials
Denis Noble
Adapts a nerve-cell electrical model to reproduce the heart's own pacemaker rhythm, producing the first mathematical model to simulate a whole cell's behaviour from its underlying ion currents.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper1969
Gene Regulation for Higher Cells: A Theory
Roy J. Britten & Eric H. Davidson
Proposes that a small set of regulatory genes can control large batteries of structural genes through a network of sensor and integrator elements, explaining how one genome produces many different cell types without any change to the DNA itself.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper1993
Tuning the Activity of an Enzyme for Unusual Environments: Sequential Random Mutagenesis of Subtilisin E for Catalysis in Dimethylformamide
Keqin Chen & Frances H. Arnold
Shows that repeated rounds of random mutation and selection can adapt an enzyme to work in a solvent it never evolved to tolerate, establishing directed evolution as a practical engineering method.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper2000
The Large-Scale Organization of Metabolic Networks
H. Jeong, B. Tombor, R. Albert, Z. N. Oltvai & A.-L. Barabasi
Maps the metabolic reaction networks of dozens of organisms and finds the same scale-free topology in each — a few highly connected metabolites and many sparsely connected ones — regardless of the organism's complexity.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper2000
A Synthetic Oscillatory Network of Transcriptional Regulators
Michael B. Elowitz & Stanislas Leibler
Builds a loop of three mutually repressing genes in E. coli that oscillates on its own, demonstrating that a designed genetic circuit can generate reliable dynamic behaviour rather than just a fixed state.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper2000
Construction of a Genetic Toggle Switch in Escherichia coli
Timothy S. Gardner, Charles R. Cantor & James J. Collins
Wires two mutually repressing genes into a bistable switch that flips between two stable states on command, giving synthetic biology its first engineered memory element.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper2002
Network Motifs: Simple Building Blocks of Complex Networks
Ron Milo et al.
Finds that gene regulatory and other biological networks are built from a small set of recurring wiring patterns that appear far more often than chance predicts, and argues each pattern performs a specific information-processing function.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper2002
Thiamine Derivatives Bind Messenger RNAs Directly to Regulate Bacterial Gene Expression
Wade C. Winkler, Ali Nahvi & Ronald R. Breaker
Shows that some bacterial messenger RNAs bind a metabolite directly and change shape in response, acting as a built-in sensor that controls gene expression without any protein intermediate.
PaidAdvanced
Paper2016
Design and Synthesis of a Minimal Bacterial Genome
Clyde A. Hutchison III et al.
Builds a bacterium with the smallest genome yet capable of independent life by repeatedly testing which genes can be removed, and finds a third of even this minimal set have no known function.
PaidAdvanced
In order written
1962 – 2016- 1969Gene Regulation for Higher Cells: A TheoryRoy J. Britten & Eric H. Davidson
- 1975Summary Statement of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA MoleculesPaul Berg et al.
- 2000The Large-Scale Organization of Metabolic NetworksH. Jeong, B. Tombor, R. Albert, Z. N. Oltvai & A.-L. Barabasi
- 2000A Synthetic Oscillatory Network of Transcriptional RegulatorsMichael B. Elowitz & Stanislas Leibler
- 2000Construction of a Genetic Toggle Switch in Escherichia coliTimothy S. Gardner, Charles R. Cantor & James J. Collins
- 2002Systems Biology: A Brief OverviewHiroaki Kitano
- 2002Network Motifs: Simple Building Blocks of Complex NetworksRon Milo et al.
- 2002Thiamine Derivatives Bind Messenger RNAs Directly to Regulate Bacterial Gene ExpressionWade C. Winkler, Ali Nahvi & Ronald R. Breaker
- 2015Synthetic Life: Could We? Should We?The Royal Institution
- 2016Design and Synthesis of a Minimal Bacterial GenomeClyde A. Hutchison III et al.