Chemistry plays a very important role in the emerging field of synthetic biology. In particular, chemical synthetic biology is concerned with the synthesis of chemical structures, such as proteins, that do not exist in nature. With contributions from leading international experts, Chemical Synthetic Biology shows how chemistry underpins synthetic biology. The book is an essential guide to this fascinating new field, and will find a place on the bookshelves of researchers and students working in synthetic chemistry, synthetic and molecular biology, bioengineering, systems biology, computational genomics, and bioinformatics.

Chemistry plays a very important role in the emerging field of synthetic biology. In particular, chemical synthetic biology is concerned with the synthesis of chemical structures, such as proteins, that do not exist in nature. With contributions from leading international experts, Chemical Synthetic Biology shows how chemistry underpins synthetic biology. The book is an essential guide to this fascinating new field, and will find a place on the bookshelves of researchers and students working in synthetic chemistry, synthetic and molecular biology, bioengineering, systems biology, computational genomics, and bioinformatics.

List of Contributors.Introduction (Pier Luigi Luisi).Part One: Nucleic Acids.1 Searching for Nucleic Acid Alternatives (AlbertEschenmoser).2 Never-Born RNAs: Versatile Modules for Chemical SyntheticBiology (Davide De Lucrezia, Fabrizio Anella, CristianoChiarabelli, and Pier Luigi Luisi).3 Synthetic Biology, Tinkering Biology, and ArtificialBiology: A Perspective from Chemistry (Steven A. Benner, FeiChen, and Zunyi Yang).4 Peptide Nucleic Acids (PNAs) as a Tool in Chemical Biology(Peter E. Nielsen).Part Two: Peptides and Proteins.5 High Solubility of Random-Sequence Proteins Consisting ofFive Kinds of Primitive Amino Acids (Nobuhide Doi, KoichiKakukawa, Yuko Oishi, and Hiroshi Yanagawa).6 Experimental Approach for Early Evolution of ProteinFunction (Hitoshi Toyota, Yuuki Hayashi, Asao YamauchiTakuyo Aita, and Tetsuya Yomo).7 Searching for de novo Totally Random Amino AcidSequences (Cristiano Chiarabelli, Cecilia Portela Pallaresand Anna Quintarelli).Part Three: Complex Systems.8 Synthetic Genetic Codes as the Basis of Synthetic Life(J. Tze-Fei Wong and Hong Xue).9 Toward Safe Genetically Modified Organisms through theChemical Diversification of Nucleic Acids (Piet Herdewijnand Philippe Marliere).10 The Minimal Ribosome (Hiroshi Yamamoto, MarkusPech, Daniela Wittek, Isabella Moll, and Knud H. Nierhaus).11 Semi-Synthetic Minimal Living Cells (PasqualeStano, Francesca Ferri, and Pier Luigi Luisi).Part Four: General Problems.12 Replicators: Components for Systems Chemistry (OlgaTaran and Günter von Kiedrowski).13 Dealing with the Outer Reaches of Synthetic BiologyBiosafety, Biosecurity, IPR, and Ethical Challenges of ChemicalSynthetic Biology (Markus Schmidt, Malcolm Dando, and AnnaDeplazes).14 The Synthetic Approach in Biology: Epistemological Notesfor Synthetic Biology (Pier Luigi Luisi).Index.