Engineering is evolution: a perspective on design processes to engineer biology
Simeon D. Castle, Michiel Stock, Thomas E. Gorochowski
Abstract
Careful consideration of how we approach design is crucial to all areas of biotechnology. However, choosing or developing an effective design methodology is not always easy as biology, unlike most areas of engineering, is able to adapt and evolve. Here, we put forward that design and evolution follow a similar cyclic process and therefore all design methods, including traditional design, directed evolution, and even random trial and error, exist within an evolutionary design spectrum. This contrasts with conventional views that often place these methods at odds and provides a valuable framework for unifying engineering approaches for challenging biological design problems.
Topics & Concepts
Engineering design processPerspective (graphical)Computer scienceSynthetic biologyProcess (computing)OddsDesign processManagement scienceData scienceBiologyComputational biologyWork in processArtificial intelligenceEngineeringMachine learningMechanical engineeringOperating systemLogistic regressionOperations managementGene Regulatory Network AnalysisEvolutionary Algorithms and ApplicationsBioinformatics and Genomic Networks