Big answers from small packages: systems and synthetic biology of microbes

How can we de- and re-construct the smallest living cells to engineer modified nanomachines, rewire pathways and build synthetic genomes from scratch? Bacteria and other microbes are among the simplest biological systems known and serve as powerful platforms to engineer synthetic cells. We have surgically removed and refactored their genetic modules into networks, switches and circuits; we have dug in their deepest past, we illuminated their insides with bolts of lightning and we engage in chemical (antibiotic) warfare with them. What other knowledge is needed to design, manufacture and/or tame a living cell?

Leading scientists talked about
- From High-throughput Live-cell Imaging to New Molecular Insights in Bacteria (Thierry Doan, CNRS Marseille)
- We Do it Our (Path)way: Bringing Inorganic Carbon into Life With Synthetic CO2-Fixation (Tobias Erb, Max-Planck-Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology Marburg)
- A Yeast Synthetic Biology Platform Generates Novel Scaffolds for Drug Discovery (Jutta Heim, Evolva SA)
- A phylogenomics perspective on the evolution of intercellular life (Matthias Horn, University of Vienna)
- Using Synthetic Selections and Screens For Genomic and Metagenomic Explorations (Morten Sommer, Technical University of Denmark)
- Reverse genomics fuel biological mechanism discovery (Nassos Typas, EMBL Heidelberg)
- Future xenobiotic bugs (Marc Creus, University of Basel)

This workshop was organized by Prof. Beat Christen (Institute of Molecular Systems Biology, ETH Zürich) and Prof. Patrick Viollier (Dept. Microbiology & Molecular Medicine, iGE3, University of Geneva), together with the Platform Biology of the SCNAT.