1 Endy D. Foundations for engineering biology.

2 Khalil A.S.

Collins J.J. Synthetic biology: applications come of age.

Synthetic biology promises to usher in a new era of scientific innovation and discovery []. Applications of this technology are broad and diverse []. Although applications frequently dominate the headlines, of equal importance are the engineering design principles. If these principles are developed rigorously, they will lay the foundation for the field and enable long-term growth and accessibility. A crucial engineering principle is design automation. Design automation is the process of applying tools (software, hardware, and wetware) to remove manual processes. Often, design automation transforms a high-level system objective ‘input’ (e.g., optimize this metabolic pathway) into a physically realized artifact ‘output’ (e.g., DNA, microbial strain, or protein). In order for design automation to be broadly applied it requires solutions to be based on sound definitions, tractable algorithms, and standardized data formats. Design automation promises to lower costs, increase design reuse, improve design reproducibility, reduce design error, and enable complex designs.