Course summary

On the Systems and Synthetic Biology MSc your study will focus on one of the newer areas of biology: the application of engineering principles to the understanding, control, and design of biological networks. This approach promises solutions to some of today’s most pressing challenges in environmental protection, human health, and energy production. In systems biology, we use computational modelling twinned with experimental research to understand how biomolecular networks can generate such diverse behaviour as the swimming of a bacterium, to the development of a person from a single egg. Synthetic biology combines systems biology with engineering principles to design and build new biomolecular networks with goals ranging from modifying microbes to digest industrial waste, to creating artificial life. Is this MSc for me? Our MSc offers training that reflects the diversity of systems and synthetic biology, from experimental lab work to stochastic simulations of biological circuits to the social implications of designed cells. We will provide you with a thorough knowledge of the fundamental principles and biotechnological tools used in systems and synthetic biology, with applications ranging from understanding genome-wide data to designing and synthesising intracellular logic gates. Often the highlight is the three-month research project, which is typically carried out in a world-leading laboratory at the University’s Centre for Engineering Biology. Your research can be computationally or experimentally based, or both, in either systems or synthetic biology, and focused on bacteria, yeast, algae, plants, or mammalian cells and tissues. In the School of Biological Sciences, we offer multi-disciplinary opportunities, and you are able to tailor your degree to suit your background and area of interest, selecting courses from across biology, as well as in physics, mathematics, and computer science.