Bacteriophages are obligate parasites of bacteria characterized by the breadth of hosts that
they can infect. This “host range” depends on the genotypes and morphologies of the phage …

Microorganisms are a promising means to address many societal sustainability challenges
owing to their ability to thrive in diverse environments and interface with the microscale …

Whole-genome synthesis provides a powerful approach for understanding and expanding
organism function,–. To build large genomes rapidly, scalably and in parallel, we need (1) …

Genetically engineered bacteria (GEB) have shown significant promises to revolutionize
modern medicine. These engineered bacteria with unique properties such as enhanced …

The development of bacterial chassis to increase productivity and reduce industrial costs in
value-added biochemical production has gained significant attention. Current efforts have …

The de novo construction of a living organism is a compelling vision. Despite the astonishing
technologies developed to modify living cells, building a functioning cell “from scratch” has …

Synthetic auxotrophy in which cell viability depends on the presence of an unnatural amino
acid (unAA) provides a powerful strategy to restrict unwanted propagation of genetically …

Background Genome simplification is an important topic in the field of life sciences that has
attracted attention from its conception to the present day. It can help uncover the essential …

Advances in systems and synthetic biology have propelled the construction of reduced
bacterial genomes. Genome reduction was initially focused on exploring properties of …

The standard genetic code defines the rules of translation for nearly every life form on Earth.
It also determines the amino acid changes accessible via single-nucleotide mutations, thus …