Advisor: Corey J. Wilson, Ph.D. (School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Tech)

Committee Members:

John J. Blazeck, Ph.D. (School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology)

Matthew J. Realff, Ph.D. (School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology)

Karmella Haynes, Ph.D. (Department of Biomedical Engineering, Emory University)

Thomas J. DiChristina, Ph.D. (School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology) 

Expanding Transcriptional Programming Wetware and Biocomputing Capacity

Synthetic biology aims to engineer cells with programmable behaviors by designing gene circuits that process information and respond to environmental cues. This thesis advances the Transcriptional Programming (T-Pro) platform through the development of novel anti-repressor biosensors and related software to enable scalable biocomputing capacity. In Aim 1, novel anti-repressor variants from the LacI/GalR family will be engineered to expand the regulatory toolkit available for constructing modular and orthogonal gene circuits. Aim 2 will focus on the development of a computational framework for designing compressed higher-order genetic circuits that leverage anti-repressor biosensors developed in Aim 1. The envisioned software will translate user-defined multi-input truth tables into compressed circuit architectures for >3-input Boolean operations. Aim 3 will apply the resulting wetware toward the development of novel biological security systems. Collectively, this work will increase T-Pro’s biocomputing capacity and enhance wetware applications in the context of biocontainment.