Prospects of synthetic biology

Synthetic biology has developed into a new engineering discipline with multidisciplinary features. In addition to the design and construction of genetic parts and circuits, the new developmental phase of synthetic biology focuses more on the construction of complex artificial biosystems. We firstly review the relationship between synthetic biology and chemical engineering. Subsequently, we review the future trend of synthetic biology, including artificial synthesis and editing of genome, design and construction of designer cells, and synthetic microbial consortia.