Northwestern University researchers propose a groundbreaking synthetic biology curriculum that spans molecular to societal scales, aiming to unify diverse scientific disciplines and promote sustainable technologies.
In an era where synthetic biology promises transformative advances from medical treatments to environmental solutions, Northwestern University researchers are striving to redefine how the subject is taught. Their innovative approach, recently published in Nature Communications, aims to bring coherence to a fragmented field by spanning education from the molecular to societal levels.
Synthetic biology — a discipline that emerged from the foundational principles of genetic engineering in the 1970s and gained momentum with CRISPR technology in the 1990s — combines biology and engineering to create or modify biological systems. Despite its potential, the field has been challenging to teach due to the varied approaches and literature across disciplines such as chemical engineering, molecular biology and ethics.
The study’s lead author Julius Lucks, who is a professor of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, emphasized the struggle to teach synthetic biology holistically.
“Early versions of synthetic biology courses lacked a conceptual foundation,” he said in a news release. “From an educational perspective, you saw a kind of hodgepodge depending on which department you were in. We set ourselves the challenge of trying to figure out, how can you merge all those disciplines, somehow develop a common framework and create a common language?”
The new curriculum framework proposed by the Northwestern team addresses this issue head-on. By organizing synthetic biology education into tiers — molecular, circuit/network, cellular, biological communities and societal — the framework encourages students to understand the interplay between different levels of biological organization. This interconnected perspective promises to produce graduates adept at not just isolated scientific problems, but at developing comprehensive, sustainable technologies.
First author Ashty Karim, an assistant research professor of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern, noted how the unique approach broadens the context for students.
“One of the biggest problems we saw in our students and labs is that they tend to be focused on a very specific problem,” Karim said in the news release. “For example, if you’re looking at how CRISPR works, you might be studying the localized protein machinery that makes edits to the DNA. But if you’re going to create a technology based on CRISPR, there are many other important facets than the molecular scale workings.”
This innovative method grows from a basic conversation in an introductory biology class, where the continuum from DNA to tissue to entire organisms was discussed. The researchers saw potential in teaching synthetic biology through a similar hierarchical approach, with ethics and societal implications integrated at each level.
Students at Northwestern have already piloted the curriculum with outstanding results. The new approach enabled them to naturally map core principles like thermodynamics and kinetics across different scales, fostering a deeper understanding.
“The concept ‘clicked’ for students even the first time they taught the course,” according to Lucks and Karim.
The broader aim is to see this curriculum adopted widely, offering flexibility for institutions and instructors to tailor it according to their specific needs. Critical to this adaptable framework are case studies that highlight engineering choices and their effects at various scales, promoting a thorough analysis of global challenges and ethical considerations in synthetic biology.
With its publication in Nature Communications, this groundbreaking framework could redefine synthetic biology teaching and learning, ushering in a new generation of scientists equipped to handle complex biological innovations and their societal ramifications.