Genetic circuits of transcription and translation are poised to grow in importance as the bioeconomy is expanding. They will be essential for the for increasingly complex demands in our near future. Many factors impact circuit performance in living organisms. The same exact circuit can be constructed with a variety of promoters and terminators, and current computational models can be used to predict which regulatory elements can results in the best circuit. However, many factors are still poorly understood. This includes effects of DNA supercoiling, context effects, copy number, and DNA orientation.

The aim of this project is to construct and test genetic circuits with different topologies, including the order and orientation of the transcriptional units. We will use the Yeast Toolkit, and our E. coli expansion of it, to clone the required genetic circuits before quantifying circuit performance using microplatereaders and flow cytometry.