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Nature Chemical Biology 5, 784–785 (1 November 2009) | doi:10.1038/nchembio.248

Slow growth leads to a switch

Keith Shearwin

Synthetic biology has potential applications across a vast array of endeavors, including bioremediation, production of renewable energy, agriculture and biomedicine. Its practitioners use an engineering-based approach, first developing mathematical models of various flavors to design artificial biological circuits with a desired behavior, building the circuit from well-understood components using the tools of molecular biology, and embedding the circuit within a favorite host organism.