Recent Developments in Synthetic Biology Toolbox

Abstract

Synthetic biology is a new and evolving branch of science, which has extensive application in the surrounding as well as human life. This field deals with the knowledge gain from the living system by the means of bioinformatics or other relevant field and try to regulate or restructure the pathways and the system of the higher organism in much simpler microorganism. It actually translates the knowledge gain from an organism or system in simpler system for the benefit of the nature. Evolution in the field of biotechnology, easy fast and high-throughput and accurate technologies available for DNA sequencing, and synthesis, has made it very easy to design and structure a specific pathway, which is useful in a particular organism in a model organism, which in field of synthetic biology is termed as chassis. Synthetic biology brings together different areas such as engineering, molecular biology, cell biology, biotechnology, bioinformatics, and system biology in such a way that they all together forms this new area with vast application in various fields. Synthetic biotechnology has its application in almost all fields such as from cellular programming to drug designing to biofuels production. In this chapter, we will be mainly dealing with the application part of the synthetic biotechnology in development of biosensors, for new drug discovery, tools for application in agriculture, for secondary metabolism, for chemical production, and for biofuel production.