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Quantitative synthetic biology

Synthetic biology faces major challenges in the rational design of complex living systems, necessitating a quantitative understanding of the principles that guide the emergence of functions from biological building blocks. Here, we propose quantitative synthetic biology as a new research paradigm, integrating quantitative biology, systems biology and synthetic biology.

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Fig. 1: Research paradigms for the design of synthetic living systems.

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Acknowledgements

We thank numerous colleagues for discussions. The work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 32025022 and 32230062 to C.L.; nos. 32393970, 32393971, 31830002, 92151001 and 31921006 to G.Z.).

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C.L. and G.Z. conceived the work. C.L., N.L. and G.Z. drafted and edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Guoping Zhao or Chenli Liu.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Luo, N., Zhao, G. & Liu, C. Quantitative synthetic biology. Nat Rev Bioeng (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44222-024-00224-y

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