Hi,

 

I'm a budding synthetic biologist (Currently studying Biochemistry at the university of Bath, UK) and I just wanted to strike up a conversation about the subject. I'm personally interested in the metabolic engineering of micro-organisms to produce biofuels or pharmaceuticals!

 

For those of you who are new to the subject or for those of you who want to know more or just read- Please check out my essay to below- It's only Part 1, as more shall follow!

 

Please check it out and reply/comment as much as you want! I'm happy to discuss any aspect!

 

http://synbiorobbath.blogspot.co.uk/

Why don't you try to start a conversation here instead of just linking to your blog?

Ok, sorry to have bothered you!

I realized that my reply could have sounded a bit more harsh than I intended to. It is less a matter of bothering, but the fact that this is a discussion forum. Advertising your own blog is not a good way to start a discussion. I would have welcomed if you e.g. provided a succinct summary or highlighted some salient points that would be conducive for further discussions.

Hi! I am writing some kind of review for school about synthetic biology and at the moment I am looking into feedforward loops as a designable circuit. Now I am wondering what could be a possible application of such feedforward loop.

 

More specific I am looking into the type 1 coherent FFL. This loop has been found to create certain delays, but I can’t find any explanation why delays would be a good thing in cell dynamics.. If somebody else knows why delays could be helpful in a cells metabolism it would be very helpful!

 

One assumption is that it protects the cell from sudden influx of stimuli. I.e. as a kind of noise filter that suppresses sudden peaks but still reacts to persistent stimuli. Some more intricate studies found that this type of regulation may modulate e.g. responses during pathogenic interactions. However, these are specialized mechanisms that often are not fully explored yet and which are probably outside of the scope you want to convey.