Access

News and Views

Nature 457, 271-272 (15 January 2009) | doi:10.1038/457271a; Published online 14 January 2009

Open Innovation Challenges

naturejobs

Synthetic biology: The yin and yang of nature

Jeff Gore1 & Alexander van Oudenaarden1

Top

Oscillations in gene expression regulate various cellular processes and so must be robust and tunable. Interactions between both negative and positive feedback loops seem to ensure these features.

Periodic oscillations are the basis of timekeeping. For many millennia, the main timekeeper was the water clock, in which time is recorded by the regular dripping of water into or out of a basin.

  1. Jeff Gore and Alexander van Oudenaarden are in the Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
    Email: avano@mit.edu

MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS

These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.

NEWS AND VIEWS

Overpowering the component problem

Nature Biotechnology News and Views (01 May 2009)