1. Another engineering principle: Characterization.

2. A stupid engineering joke: A physicist, a mathematician and an engineer were each asked to establish the volume of a red rubber ball. The physicist immersed the ball in a beaker full of water and measured the volume of the displaced fluid. The mathematician measured the diameter and calculated a triple integral. The engineer looked it up in his Red Rubber Ball Volume Table.

3. But first A quick review of bacterial transcription and promoters and such

7. One type of characterization is Tuning

9. Tuning By mixing and matching promoters and RBS parts we can have genetic devices that work at various levels Weak Promoter + weak RBS = weak device Strong Promoter + strong RBS = strong device Weak Promoter + strong RBS = Medium Promoter + medium RBS =

10. Why would synthetic biologists want to be able to tune a system/device?