Synthetic biology: toward a behavior-matching genomic compiler of desired cell functions

The field of synthetic biology is in need of an engineering framework to safely design reliable biological functions de novo. Computer aided design (CAD) should play a central role in this endeavor. Yet, while CAD environments are commonly used in artificial systems engineering, their application to synthetic biology is still in its infancy. Here, we address the challenge of creating a high-level programming language especially suited for CAD in synthetic biology. We propose GUBS (Genomic Unified Behavioral Specification), a language describing the desired behavior of cells, together with a compiler capable of selecting the appropriate genomic components in such a way that the observation of the synthetic biological functions resulting from their assembly matches the programmed behaviors.