Expanding the Synthetic Biology Toolkit with Bidirectional Promoters

Synthetic biology is a foundational ARL research competency with applications in metabolic pathway engineering, materials, and soldier performance enhancement. However, engineering complex mammalian genetic circuits is currently challenging due to our inability to simultaneously control multiple genes with precision. We propose to establish bidirectional promoters as unique tools for controlling the relative expression of two genes in both amount and in time, thus expanding our toolkit for mammalian synthetic biology.