Week 1 HW: Final Project Ideas

What do you want to make?

DNA/RNA strand-displacement switch

What living system could make it?

. E. Coli
. Cell-free transcription

How could automation help you make it?

STEP 1: AI / algorithm
STEP 2: Design thousands of candidate circuits
STEP 3: Automated DNA/RNA manufacturing
STEP 4: Automated assembly
STEP 5: Robotic testing
STEP 6: Sequencing / fluorescence / MS
STEP 7: Performance data
STEP 8: AI Optimization

What would it take to make it at a meaningful scale?

Target: target as 10⁹–10¹² usable molecular gates per production run
Industrial stack to build:

1. Design
   
2. Biological Production
   
3. Assembly
   
4. Spatial Organization
   
5. Computation
   
6. Readout
   
7. QC
   
8. Automation