Designing synthetic genetic circuits to build motile ‘biobots’

Leonardo Morsut is an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California (CA, USA) in the Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine Department. His research group focuses on controlling multicellular behaviors using synthetic biology approaches, with an interest in using these techniques to grow tissues and organs in the lab. Earlier this year, we spoke with Leonardo at the European Laboratory Research and Innovation Group’s (ELRIG) Research and Innovation conference (29–30 March 2023; Cambridgeshire, UK) to find out about the differences between synthetic biology and classical biology approaches and his preliminary work developing a motile ‘biobot’ based on cardiomyocyte contraction,...