Designing biological circuits: from principles to applications

TL;DR

This paper reviews the design principles and methodologies of biological genetic circuits, highlighting advances, classification frameworks, and future research directions in synthetic biology.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic review framework using generalized morphological analysis to organize and assess key works in genetic circuit design.

Findings

Mapped literature based on design methodologies, modeling techniques, functionalities, and robustness strategies.

Identified key research gaps and future directions in genetic circuit design.

Provided a comprehensive overview of the evolution and current state of the field.

Abstract

Genetic circuit design is a well-studied problem in synthetic biology. Ever since the first genetic circuits -- the repressilator and the toggle switch -- were designed and implemented, many advances have been made in this area of research. The current review systematically organizes a number of key works in this domain by employing the versatile framework of generalized morphological analysis. Literature in the area has been mapped based on (a) the design methodologies used, ranging from brute-force searches to control-theoretic approaches, (b) the modelling techniques employed, (c) various circuit functionalities implemented, (d) key design characteristics, and (e) the strategies used for the robust design of genetic circuits. We conclude our review with an outlook on multiple exciting areas for future research, based on the systematic assessment of key research gaps that have been readily unravelled by our analysis framework.