ACTIVATOR: Activator is a transcriptional factor that increases transcriptional activity.

APTAMER: Aptamers are oligonucleotide or peptide molecules that bind to a specific target molecule.

ARTIFICIAL CELL: An artificial cell is an engineered cell-like system that mimics normal biological functions such as replication and evolution while being able to metabolize small molecule nutrients.

BACTERIOPHAGE: A bacteriophage is a modified virus, in which a DNA fragment of interest is inserted, and which carries the DNA of interest to the host cell.

BIOSENSOR: A Biosensor is a device which uses a living organism or biological molecules, especially enzymes or antibodies, to detect the presence of chemicals.

BIOTECHNOLOGY: The technology of biological processes using cells (animal and plants), organisms, and microorganisms, parts and products of their processing such as enzymes,secondary metabolites and antibodies, for the production of useful or commercially viable products and for the provision of services for the benefit of humans.

BISTABILITY: Bistability is the property of having two stable equilibrium states and can only occur in systems with only one state variable.

CARLSON CURVE: Carlson curve is a term to describe the rate of DNA sequencing or cost per sequenced base as a function of time. It is the biotechnological equivalent of Moore’s law.

CELL-FREE SYSTEMS: A cell-free system is a tool widely used to study biological gene expression inside non-living, in vitro biochemical reactions thus reducing the complex interactions typically found when working in a whole cell.

CHARACTERIZATION: Characterization (of parts) is the engineering principle that involves the measurement and calculation of a part’s parameters, so that it can be reliably used when assembling a device. Modularity, characterization, and standardization are engineering principles that are necessary for the application of systematic methods to biological systems design.

CHASSIS: In synthetic biology, a chassis refers to a more or less improved host for genetic constructs whether in bacteria yeast, fungi, archaea, animal or plant cells. The term has also been applied to organisms with edited genomes for enhancing this or that trait of interest as well as bacteria with minimized DNA contents, including altogether synthetic genomes.

CAR T-CELLS: CAR T-cells are immune cells with engineered receptors that change which antigens these cells respond to. Chimeric antigen receptors are found on the T-cell membrane, chimeric DNA or recombinant DNA refers to a genetically engineered sequence that is manufactured from two different species.

CHIMERIC PROTEINS: Chimeric proteins are proteins that result from the fusion of the coding sequences of different protein-expressing genes. They are designed to combine both functions of these genes. Fusing fluorescent proteins, like GFP or YFP, to other proteins in order to visualize their expression, is common practice in Synthetic Biology laboratories.

CLONING: Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical or virtually identical DNA, either by natural or artificial means.

COMPONENT INTEROPERABILITY: Component Interoperability is the ability of the component to successfully operate in conjunction with other components, without limitation or difficulty in its use.

COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY: Computational Biology is the science of using computers and computer science methods to study, model and understand biological systems and functions.

CAR T-CELLS: CAR T-cells are immune cells with engineered receptors that change which antigens these cells respond to. Chimeric antigen receptors are found on the T-cell membrane, chimeric DNA or recombinant DNA refers to a genetically engineered sequence that is manufactured from two different species.

DBTL CYCLE (DESIGN/BUILD/TEST/LEARN): A DBTL cycle is a universal skeptical loop of engineers used in the application of an innovative idea and consists of Design Build Test and Learn principles.

DESIGN MODEL: Design Model is an object model describing the realization of use cases and serves as an abstraction of the implementation model and its source code.

DEVICES: Devices are a group of biological parts assembledin order to replicate a biological function.

FEEDBACK LOOPS: A feedback loop is the part of a system in which some portion (or all) of the system's output is used as input for future operations.

FORWARD ENGINEERING: Forward engineering is the process of constructing / adding specific features and details to a part of a high-level system based on the analysis of its function.

GENE: Gene is a DNA sequence that has the ability to be transcripted to RNA molecules and even lead to peptide molecules’ production and which is the basic heredity unit of living organisms.

GENE CASSETTE: Gene cassette is a DNA sequence that usually contains a gene and has the ability to move through recombination.

GENETIC CIRCUIT: Genetic circuit is a set of genetic parts, from which RNA molecules and/or proteins are expressed, and which enables cells to perform specific functions.

GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISM: Genetically modified organism is an organism whose genetic material has been modified through genetic engineering techniques.

LOGIC GATE: A logic gate is an idealized or physical device implementing a Booleanfunction, a logical operation performed on one or more binary inputs that produces a single binary output.

MINIMAL GENOME: Minimal genome is the set of genetic elements that are sufficient to build a free-living organism.

MODELING BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS: Modeling biological systems is a significant task of computational systems biology that aims to develop and use efficient algorithms, datastructures, visualization, and communication tools with the goal of computer modeling of biological systems.

MODULARITY: Modularity is a system property to study its individual modular parts, of which it consists of.

OPEN READING FRAMES: Open Reading Frames are defined as spans of DNA sequence between the start and stop codons.

ORTHOGONALITY: Orthogonality is the inability of the individual elements of a biological system to interact with each other in a way that alters their desired function.

OSCILLATOR: Genetic circuits that contain three or more genes capable of interacting with each other in a way that the output or signal is altered between two states. That usually happens when the number of nods in these synthetic networks is odd.

PART: Part is a DNA region that encodes a biological function

POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION (PCR): Polymerase chain reaction (abbreviated PCR) is a laboratory technique for rapidly producing (amplifying) millions to billions of copies of a specific segment of DNA, which can then be studied in greater detail.

PROMOTER: A promoter is a sequence of DNA, upstream of a gene, where proteins and enzymes bind (transcription factors and RNA polymerases) to initiate transcription of that gene, resulting in a new RNA molecule.

PROTOCELLS: A protocell is a self-organized, endogenously ordered, spherical collection of abiotic components such as lipids with the proper structure and functions necessary to fulfill the criteria of life that is proposed as a stepping-stone toward the origin of life.

QUORUM SENSING: Quorum Sensing is the regulation of gene expression in response to fluctuations in cell-population density

RASPBERRY PI COMPUTER: Raspberry Pi is a low-cost, compact computer that can be connected to any device like a regular pc.

REPRESSOR: In molecular genetics a repressor is a DNA- or RNA-binding protein that inhibits the expression of one or more genes by binding to the operator or associated silencers.

REVERSE ENGINEERING: Reverse Engineering is the reproduction of another manufacturer's product following detailed examination of its construction or composition.

RIBOSOME-BINDING SITE (RBS): An RBS is a sequence of nucleotides upstream of the start codon of an mRNA transcript that is responsible for the recruitment of a ribosome during the initiation of translation.

RIBOSWITCH: A regulatory segment of a messenger RNA molecule that binds a small molecule, resulting in a conformational change that alters production of the proteins encoded by the mRNA

SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS: Sensitivity analysis determines how different values of an independent variable affect a particular dependent variable under a given set of assumptions. This technique is used within specific boundaries that depend on one or more input variables.

SEQUENCE ASSEMBLY: Sequence assembly refers to aligning and merging fragments from a longer DNA sequence in order to reconstruct the original sequence.

STANDARDIZATION: Standardization is an engineering principle that involves the design of parts that can be combined, easily and repeatedly, to create a device so that it does not need to be produced from scratch every time, but it can be assembled from these standard parts. Modularity, characterization, and standardization, are engineering principles that are necessary for the application of systematic methods to biological systems design.

SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY: Synthetic biology is a multidisciplinary area of research that aims to design and engineer biologically based parts, novel devices and systems – as well as redesigning existing natural biological systems, for useful purposes.

SYSTEM: A system is a complex network which connects several biologically relevant entities know as devices aiming to create a specific higher-order biological function.

SYSTEMS BIOLOGY: Systems biology is a biology-based interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological systems using a holistic approach ( instead of the more traditional reductionism) applying computational and mathematical analysis and modeling.

TRANSCRIPTION TERMINATION SEQUENCES: Transcription Termination Sequences is a section of nucleic acid sequences that mark the end of a gene or operon in genomic DNA during transcription.

TRANSFECTION: Transfection is the introduction of exogenous DNA to a eukaryotic cell.

TRANSFORMATION: Transformation in biology, one of several processes by which genetic material in the form of “naked” DNA is transferred between microbial cells.

TRANSGENIC: A transgenic organism is an organism to which a gene has been transferred from a different organism and/or species.

VECTOR: A vector is a molecule that is used as a vehicle to carry DNA (or RNA) into foreign cells, either prokaryotic or eukaryotic. Plasmids are the most common vectors used in Synthetic Biology laboratories.

VIRUS: A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism.