SynBio4ALL Africa
SynBio4ALL Intermediate Course 2024
Check our syllabus here for overview of our course, also previewed below.
Intermediate Course in
Microbial Synthetic Biology 2024
SynBio4ALL provided a 10-week intermediate course in Microbial Synthetic Biology taught by a mixed team from Africa and US accompanied by homework for review and final group project
Week 1
Beginner Course Review
Week 4
Metabolic Engineering
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Week 7
Microbes for Sustainability
Week 2
Protein Engineering
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Week 5
Frugal Science
and Makerspace
Week 3
Strain Engineering
and Validation
Week 6
Engineering Bacterial Therapeutics
Week 8-10
Group Projects Developement
and Final Presentations
For any questions regarding the course materials or asynchronous homework, reached out to Ice and Heidi (synbioforall [at] gmail.com)
Week 1 – Synthetic Biology Review
Instructor: Harikrishnan R Namboothiri
TA: Cholpisit (Ice) Kiattisewee and Kato Sebunya Emmanuel
Date: May 1st, 2024
In this lecture, we will revisit general concepts of synthetic biology from our beginner class. We cover various topics from the central dogma of molecular biology, how each design biological part function, to the engineering aspects of multiple biological units.
Slide
Homework
Week 2 – Protein Engineering
Instructor: Heidi Klumpe
TA: Kato Sebunya Emmanuel
Date: May 8th, 2024
In this lecture, we discussed on the idea of protein engineering, a powerful approach to innovate synthetic biology applications. We cover different strategies from rational design, randomization, and model-guided engineering.
Slide
Homework
Week 3 – Strain Engineering
Instructor: Sayandeep Gupta
TA: Heidi Klumpe
Date: May 15th, 2024
In this lecture, Sayandeep explains on how to engineer microbial to generate new strains. There are several methods to engineer microbes at DNA level. These engineering approaches could be accomplished either at the plasmid DNA level or at the bacterial chromosome. Finally, we introduced a few examples of engineered microbial strains for various applications.
Slide
Homework
Week 4 – Metabolic Engineering
Instructor: Cholpisit Ice Kiattisewee
TA: Kato Sebunya Emmanuel
Date: May 22nd, 2024
In this lecture, we will touch on the Chemistry side of Synthetic Biology, especially on how to make chemicals from engineering metabolism. We discussed on general Metabolic Engineering strategies particularly on how to make new products and how to make more products. Several metaphors/scenarios will be employed throughout the lecture.
Slide
Homework
Week 5 – Frugal Science
and Makerspaces
Instructor: Prince Edem Samoh
TA: Kato Sebunya Emmanuel
Date: May 29th, 2024
In this lecture, we described a method to make SynBio accessible. This core idea is generally termed, Frugal Science, where technology can be readily accessible with low cost. We walked through several Open Science initiatives on how we can make Synthetic Biology technologies more accessible, especially in the African communities.
Slide
Homework
Week 6 – Engineered Bacterial Therapeutics
Instructor: Ava Karanjia
TA: Kato Sebunya Emmanuel
Date: June 5th, 2024
In this lecture, we introduced an idea when bacteria can be engineered to use as probiotics, so called living bacterial therapeutics. We discussed different keywords, e.g. probiotics, prebiotics, and microbiota, and described how we can engineer microbes to exhibit therapeutic property. Engineered living therapeutic is an emerging field in Synthetic Biology and possess diverse potentials for curing disease that might be difficult with conventional molecular therapeutics and could also be deployable in various set-up, including the diverse ecological systems across African continents.
Slide
Homework
Week 7 – Microbes for Sustainability
Instructor: Enrico Orsi
TA: Kato Sebunya Emmanuel
Date: June 12th, 2024
In this lecture, we introduced repertoire of bacteria that are important for building sustainable future. We started by walking through different types of microbes based on their ecological niches that they thrive in. Then, we dive into the Design-Build-Test-Learn cycles of how to optimize these microbes, both top-down and bottom-up approaches, for sustainability applications --- ranging from building novel chemicals to remediating the polluted environments.
Slide
Homework
Week 8-10 and office hours:
Proposal-based Final Project
During the last 3 weeks of our Intermediate Course 2024, we worked with students to formulate Synthetic Biology Project. We aimed to tackle global issues or regional African problems using the knowledge learned during this class. Selected group projects were listed below as examples of students' ideas.
Have a SynBio Idea?
Homework Team
Shantal Garcia
