Chemical and Synthetic Biology

Chemical and Synthetic Biology is an interdisciplinary field that uses chemical tools, molecular design and engineering principles to study, manipulate and understand biological systems. It develops chemical probes, synthetic molecules and molecular technologies to investigate biological processes and control cellular function. Research in this area at the RSC includes engineering and evolution of neonature proteins, and developing microbes to produce small molecules or peptides for pharmaceutical, agricultural and industrial applications. RSC jointly hosts the ANU SynBio Initiative and the ANU node of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology.