Synthetic biology aims at engineering bio-computing devices in living organisms. Key to this endeavour is the computer-aided design of biological systems, which is not yet robust enough to design fully predictable genetic circuits. To this end, we need standards. Foremost among emerging computing standards is the Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL), an open standard for the representation of in silico biological designs.
This PhD project will focus on the research and development of novel design methods for synthetic biology based on SBOL. SBOL is being developed by an international community, for which the supervisors are Editor and Chair. This standard provides a data format that can capture information of complex systems in unprecedented level of detail, leading to the potential automation of synthetic biology workflows.