Synthetic biology aims to create functional devices, systems and organisms with novel and
useful functions on the basis of catalogued and standardized biological building blocks …

Cyanobacteria are an evolutionarily and ecologically important group of prokaryotes. They
exist in diverse habitats, ranging from hot springs and deserts to glaciers and the open …

The discovery of light-inducible protein–protein interactions has allowed for the spatial and
temporal control of a variety of biological processes. To be effective, a photodimerizer …

Genetic circuits perform computational operations based on interactions between freely
diffusing molecules within a cell. When transcription factors are combined to build a circuit …

Control of the lac operon with isopropyl β-d-1-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG) has been used
to regulate gene expression in Escherichia coli for countless applications, including …

Dynamic control of gene expression can have far-reaching implications for biotechnological
applications and biological discovery. Thanks to the advantages of light, optogenetics has …

Optogenetic tools use colored light to rapidly control gene expression in space and time. We
designed a genetically encoded system that gives Escherichia coli the ability to distinguish …

Synthetic gene circuits are designed to program new biological behaviour, dynamics and
logic control. For all but the simplest synthetic phenotypes, this requires a structured …

Light has become established as a tool not only to visualize and investigate but also to steer
biological systems. This review starts by discussing the unique features that make light such …

Over the past decade, synthetic biology has emerged as an engineering discipline for
biological systems. Compared with other substrates, biology poses a unique set of …