Designing Genetic Feedback Controllers

By incorporating feedback around systems we wish to manipulate, it is possible to improve their performance and robustness properties to meet pre-specified design objectives. For decades control engineers have been successfully implementing feedback controllers for complex mechanical and electrical systems such as aircraft and sports cars. Natural biological systems use feedback extensively for regulation and adaptation but apart from the most basic designs, there is no systematic framework for designing feedback controllers in Synthetic Biology. In this paper we describe how classical approaches from linear control theory can be used to close the loop. This includes the design of genetic circuits using feedback control and the presentation of a biological phase lag controller.