The course aims at providing a description of the theoretical framework of synthetic biology and, subsequently, an overview of current applications of synthetic biology to plant science.

At the end of the course, students will possess knowledge of the general concepts of synthetic biology and of the state-of-the-art methodologies and techniques used for the design of novel biological components and gene circuits, or the re-design of existing biological systems. Moreover, students will gain in-depth awareness of the current applications of synthetic biology to plant science, thanks to the analysis of a wide range of examples from the literature presented during lectures.

Students will be assessed on (i) the acquisition of familiarity with general concepts of synthetic biology and (ii) their capacity to harness the theoretical and methodological resources available to plant biologists today to tackle open questions in the field of plant science adopting synthetic biology approaches.

The acquired knowledge will be subjected to three layers of evaluation:

• knowledge related to the lecture hours will be assessed with an intermediate written test;
• knowledge of the applicative perspectives of synthetic biology to plant science will be assayed through the individual presentation of a small proposal.

At the end of the course, students will enhance their ability to conceive, propose and present viable strategies that take advantage of state-of-the-art engineering technologies of plant, microbes and biological communities aimed at plant biotechnology, plant science and crop improvement.

Skills will be verified

• through the students’ capacity to analyze published case studies that employ synbio approaches, critically present them to the class and discuss the methods used and the significance of the described findings;
• through the development of a small applicative proposal, related to a topic proposed by the teacher, aimed at solving or describing a biological problem in the field of plant science by use of synthetic biology approaches.

Students are expected to be actively enrolled in the build-up of the interactive part of the course.

A curiosity-driven approach to the topics proposed by the teacher is, moreover, encouraged throughout the whole course.

Students’ behaviours will be evaluated according to their participation in problem solving and the attitude to express their critical thinking by raising questions.