The Systems and Synthetic Biology of Auxin
- 1Department of Biological Systems Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA
- 2Department of Biology, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington 99362, USA
- 3Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA
- Correspondence: jn7{at}uw.edu
Abstract
Auxin biology as a field has been at the forefront of advances in delineating the structures, dynamics, and control of plant growth networks. Advances have been enabled by combining the complementary fields of top-down, holistic systems biology and bottom-up, build-to-understand synthetic biology. Continued collaboration between these approaches will facilitate our understanding of and ability to engineer auxin's control of plant growth, development, and physiology. There is a need for the application of similar complementary approaches to improving equity and justice through analysis and redesign of the human systems in which this research is undertaken.
