Browsing by Author "Franco, Elisa"

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    A portable regulatory RNA array design enables tunable and complex regulation across diverse bacteria
    (Springer Nature, 2023) Liu, Baiyang; Samaniego, Christian Cuba; Bennett, Matthew R.; Franco, Elisa; Chappell, James; Bioengineering; Biosciences
    A lack of composable and tunable gene regulators has hindered efforts to engineer non-model bacteria and consortia. Toward addressing this, we explore the broad-host potential of small transcription activating RNA (STAR) and propose a design strategy to achieve tunable gene control. First, we demonstrate that STARs optimized for E. coli function across different Gram-negative species and can actuate using phage RNA polymerase, suggesting that RNA systems acting at the level of transcription are portable. Second, we explore an RNA design strategy that uses arrays of tandem and transcriptionally fused RNA regulators to precisely alter regulator concentration from 1 to 8 copies. This provides a simple means to predictably tune output gain across species and does not require access to large regulatory part libraries. Finally, we show RNA arrays can be used to achieve tunable cascading and multiplexing circuits across species, analogous to the motifs used in artificial neural networks.
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    Ten Years of the Synthetic Biology Summer Course at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
    (American Chemical Society, 2024) Haynes, Karmella A.; Andrews, Lauren B.; Beisel, Chase L.; Chappell, James; Cuba Samaniego, Christian E.; Dueber, John E.; Dunlop, Mary J.; Franco, Elisa; Lucks, Julius B.; Noireaux, Vincent; Savage, David F.; Silver, Pamela A.; Smanski, Michael; Young, Eric
    The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Summer Course on Synthetic Biology, established in 2013, has emerged as a premier platform for immersive education and research in this dynamic field. Rooted in CSHL’s rich legacy of biological discovery, the course offers a comprehensive exploration of synthetic biology’s fundamentals and applications. Led by a consortium of faculty from diverse institutions, the course structure seamlessly integrates practical laboratory sessions, exploratory research rotations, and enriching seminars by leaders in the field. Over the years, the curriculum has evolved to cover essential topics such as cell-free transcription–translation, DNA construction, computational modeling of gene circuits, engineered gene regulation, and CRISPR technologies. In this review, we describe the history, development, and structure of the course, and discuss how elements of the course might inform the development of other short courses in synthetic biology. We also demonstrate the course’s impact beyond the lab with a summary of alumni contributions to research, education, and entrepreneurship. Through these efforts, the CSHL Summer Course on Synthetic Biology remains at the forefront of shaping the next generation of synthetic biologists.