MSc Systems and Synthetic Biology
Information for students on our Systems and Synthetic Biology programme.
Programme Director's Welcome
The MSc in Systems and Synthetic Biology represents a unique opportunity to train in new and leading-edge areas in biology. Systems biology integrates computational modelling with experimental research to understand how biomolecular networks can generate such diverse behaviour as the swimming of a bacterium to the development of a person built of trillions of cells from a single egg. Synthetic biology combines systems biology with engineering principles to design and build new biomolecular networks with goals ranging from modifying microbes to digest industrial waste to creating artificial life.
Our MSc offers training that reflects the diversity of systems and synthetic biology, from experimental lab work to stochastic simulations of biological circuits to the social implications of designed cells. Often the highlight is the three-month research project, which is typically carried out in a laboratory at the University’s Centre for Engineering Biology. Your research can be computationally or experimentally based or both, in either systems or synthetic biology, and focused on bacteria, yeast, algae, plants, or mammalian cells and tissues. The University of Edinburgh is a hub for world-leading research, and you will work alongside pioneering experts.
We offer flexibility in the structure of the programme, allowing you to select courses from across the university to suit your background and area of interest. The MSc is also part of a suite of MSc programmes within the School of Biological Sciences offering multi-disciplinary opportunities and unparalleled course choices across many areas of biology.
The MSc programme will equip you with the core skills necessary to either launch a career in the biotechnology or pharmaceutical industries or to gain a place at an internationally competitive PhD programme. We look forward to meeting you in September.
- Professor Peter Swain
Programme Director (MSc in Systems and Synthetic Biology)
Systems/Synthetic Biology Website