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Research

Biological systems - including the simplest cells - exhibit a broad range of functions to thrive in their environment. Research in the Imperial College Centre for Synthetic Biology is focused on the possibility of engineering the underlying biochemical processes to solve many of the challenges facing society, from healthcare to sustainable energy. In particular, we model, analyse, design and build biological and biochemical systems in living cells and/or in cell extracts, both exploring and enhancing the engineering potential of biology.

As part of our research we develop novel methods to accelerate the celebrated Design-Build-Test-Learn synthetic biology cycle. As such research in the Centre for Synthetic Biology highly multi- and interdisciplinary covering computational modelling and machine learning approaches; automated platform development and genetic circuit engineering ; multi-cellular and multi-organismal interactions, including gene drive and genome engineering; metabolic engineering; in vitro/cell-free synthetic biology; engineered phages and directed evolution; and biomimetics, biomaterials and biological engineering.

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Poulton:2019:10.1073/pnas.1808775116,
author = {Poulton, J and Wolde, PRT and Ouldridge, TE},
doi = {10.1073/pnas.1808775116},
journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences},
pages = {1946--1951},
title = {Non-equilibrium correlations in minimal dynamical models of polymer copying},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1808775116},
volume = {116},
year = {2019}
}

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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Living systems produce "persistent" copies of information-carrying polymers, in which template and copy sequences remain correlated after physically decoupling. We identify a general measure of the thermodynamic efficiency with which these non-equilibrium states are created, and analyze the accuracy and efficiency of a family of dynamical models that produce persistent copies. For the weakest chemical driving, when polymer growth occurs in equilibrium, both the copy accuracy and, more surprisingly, the efficiency vanish. At higher driving strengths, accuracy and efficiency both increase, with efficiency showing one or more peaks at moderate driving. Correlations generated within the copy sequence, as well as between template and copy, store additional free energy in the copied polymer and limit the single-site accuracy for a given chemical work input. Our results provide insight in the design of natural self-replicating systems and can aid the design of synthetic replicators.
AU  - Poulton,J
AU  - Wolde,PRT
AU  - Ouldridge,TE
DO  - 10.1073/pnas.1808775116
EP  - 1951
PY  - 2019///
SN  - 0027-8424
SP  - 1946
TI  - Non-equilibrium correlations in minimal dynamical models of polymer copying
T2  - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1808775116
UR  - http://arxiv.org/abs/1805.08502v1
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/65125
VL  - 116
ER  -