Synthetic biology is the new frontier of genetic engineering. By changing the genes inside of a cell, you can program it to do novel and useful functions that it otherwise could not. Cellular immunotherapy, the newest hope in cancer treatment, is a example of the rising important of synthetic biology in our lives.
Playsmid is an interactive way to dive into the basics of synthetic biology design without ever having to pick up a pipette or put on a lab coat. By teaching synthetic biology logic through a game, even those with no biology knowledge can start learning how to make their own novel organisms.
Playsmid models the process of designing and integrating a plasmid (circular piece of DNA) to engineer yeast cells. The puzzles included in Playsmid allow you to build up your knowledge in synthetic biology-- Begin with simple color outputs and advance into detecting and amplifying molecular signals.
If you are a researcher or educator, you can add your own repository of genetic parts to our crowdsourced database and show students how to build strains in a engaging, visual format. Playsmid is your genetic playground!