An Introduction to BioBricks

What is a BioBrick?

The BioBrick logic family is a set of interchangable components, designed with a view to building biological systems in living cells. The members of this family are designed to be compatible, composible, interchangeable and independent; in this way a new generation of biological engineers are building novel devices much in the way their electronically-orientated collegues might piece together transistors, resistors and capacitors.

A BioBrick represents a unique sequence of DNA; it might be a gene that codes a protein or a switch triggered by an external input, it also has a unique name. Whatever its function, a biobrick comes packaged in a plasmid, ready to be assembled into useful devices & systems.

Building BioBrick Systems

Physical parts in the DNA Repository have been designed to be assembled into systems using normal cloning techniques based on restriction enzymes, purification, ligation, and transformation - with a twist: BioBrick parts are composable. The result of assembling two parts is a new part that may be used in future assemblies.

Standard Assembly

The classical method of BioBrick assembly, done at the lab bench. Insert pic of std assembly