First synthetic gene circuits (toggle switch and repressilator)
Primeros circuitos genéticos sintéticos (toggle switch y represilador)
- Date
- 2000 · confidence high
- Place
- Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- Credited to
- Timothy Gardner, Charles Cantor and James Collins (Boston); Michael Elowitz and Stanislas Leibler (Princeton)
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
In January 2000 Collins's group built in Escherichia coli a bistable switch with two mutually inhibiting repressors, and Elowitz and Leibler's group built a three-repressor oscillator (the repressilator). They are the first gene circuits designed from scratch and mark the start of synthetic biology.
Gardner, Cantor and Collins published the toggle switch in Nature on 20 January 2000 and Elowitz and Leibler the repressilator in the same issue; the coordinates are Boston's (Princeton is a second site).
What it led to
- biosensors and programmable bacteria (diagnosis, therapy)
- circuit design for cellular memory and genetic logic
- consolidation of synthetic biology as an engineering discipline (iGEM, BioBricks)