Summary: Advances in Complex Systems, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2003) 1­9
c World Scientific Publishing Company
EVOLUTIONARY DESIGN OF GENETIC CIRCUITS
AND CELL-CELL COMMUNICATIONS
YOHEI YOKOBAYASHI, CYNTHIA H. COLLINS, JARED R. LEADBETTER,
RON WEISS and FRANCES H. ARNOLD,
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Division of Engineering and Applied
Science, California Institute of Technology 1200 E. California Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
frances@cheme.caltech.edu
Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, B-312, E-Quad, Princeton,
NJ 08544, USA
rweiss@princeton.edu
Received 15 November 2002
Accepted 28 November 2002
Synthetic genetic circuits are artificial networks of transcriptional control elements in-
serted into living cells in order to `program' cellular behavior. We can extend this appli-
cation to programming population behavior by incorporating cell-cell communications
capabilities. By designing and building such networks, cellular circuit engineers expect to
gain insight into how natural genetic networks function with remarkable robustness, sta-
bility, and adaptability to changing environments. Programmed cells also have promising

Source: Arnold, Frances H. - Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology
Leadbetter, Jared R. - Environmental Microbiology, California Institute of Technology

Collections: Biology and Medicine; Chemistry; Environmental Management and Restoration Technologies