The science
A design map for cellular behavior.
Forward engineering of biology has mostly meant building a part and seeing what it does. We work in the other direction: starting from a behavior and finding the circuits that produce it. That inversion needs a map — a structured account of what protein circuits can and cannot compute.
The problem
A protein circuit's behavior is set by its topology and its rates. The same topology can produce very different functions; very different topologies can produce the same one. Without a map of that relationship, design stays a search in the dark.
How it works
- 01
Specify a behavior
Describe the function you want — a switch, a pulse, a band-pass response — in the language of dynamics, not parts.
- 02
Search the design map
We locate the regions of circuit space whose qualitative behavior matches the specification.
- 03
Synthesize circuits
Candidate protein circuits are assembled from mechanism, with parameters chosen to land inside the target region.
- 04
Verify in silico
Each candidate is simulated and phenotyped, so only designs that behave as specified move forward.
Scope
Our methods target protein-level circuits — sensing, signaling, and regulation that act on the timescale of a cell's decisions. This page is a plain-language overview; technical detail is available on request.