Week 2 HW: DNA Design

After viewing the recitation from Spring 2026, it took me quite a long time to understand what was going on.

However, there is a lot to say that has not really been said.

First off, one has to understand what “glyphs” are in the field of syn bio (https://sbolstandard.org/visual-glyphs/). A solid example can be found at (https://sbolstandard.org/visual-examples/) where “Example 1” shows an example of a very small plasmid comprised of a: promoter, RBS, CDS, and terminator.

If you don’t know what that is, then we must look it up…

However, we will eventually be granted access to “Kernel” where we can begin to design our own plasmids to be either transfected (CHO cells) or transformed (E. Coli cells) into a “chassis”.

Learning more about the “repressilator” that was crafted, which is itself a plasmid that was transformed into E. Coli, it was used to essentially have a cell express green fluorescent protein (GFP) at varying concentrations over time. This is par for the course for any circuit designer just starting out.

Essentially… this is the equivalent of getting a light to blink on and off, the quintisential method of communication known to any budding engineer.

This reminds me of when I first put together a blinking light using an LED hooked up to an Arduino. This is the same concept, the Hello World for Syn Bio.