Synthetic Biology tools and principles have matured tremendously over the last decade and have reached extraordinary levels of sophistication, both in eukaryotic and prokaryotic systems. Synthetic biology as a therapeutic modality is starting to enter multiple clinical studies and has the potential to have a significant impact on medicine across a wide range of diseases (e.g., metabolic, immune-mediated, cancer, and neurologic diseases). This Keystone Symposia conference will delve into the field of synthetic biology with a special emphasis on its applications to medicine. While there are conferences that capture synthetic biology in only a few talks mixed in among other various topics, there is a paucity of conferences focused on synthetic biology as drugs to treat disease.

However, due to the rapid pace of fundamental scientific advances along with an expanding number of biotechnology companies and emerging clinical studies with synthetic biology at their core, this conference will be highly relevant for a wide audience of scientists both from academia and industry. In addition, other meetings in this field have a highly technology-driven focus on synthetic biology techniques with relatively little attention given to biological and medical context. Ultimately, this Keystone Symposia conference should inspire researchers from diverse backgrounds to discuss synthetic biology via many new angles.