The Essex Synthetic Biology School (ESBS) is an intensive 5-day summer course targeting students and early career scientists interested in learning cutting edge experimental and computational methods to design and build biological systems directly from world-renowned experts, working with bacterial, yeast, plant and mammalian systems, in fields such as cancer and healthcare research, as well as industrial, agricultural and environmental synthetic biology.
Synthetic biology is an emerging research and industrial field aiming at designing and engineering biological systems with specific functions. To do that, it integrates methods and technologies from biology, chemistry, engineering, computer science and mathematics to streamline the process of designing, building and testing biological systems. In the last 10 years, synthetic biology has contributed many ground breaking scientific results, including the first synthetic cell and the first synthetic chromosomes, and industrial applications, including the production of drugs and biofuels.
The School, located at the University of Essex in the U.K., comprises 20 lectures and 5 laboratory sessions, focusing on building pathways in bacteria and yeast.