Synthetic Circuit Design

Nonetheless, the bottom-up route has turned into an engineering approach to synthetic biology [150], The strategy is to combine predefined DNA modules, so-called bio-bricks that can be combined to bio-circuits, designed to be implementations of biological functions [151], In that sense, synthetic biology is seen as the successor of molecular cloning, in particular, with respect to safety issues. 

As seen above, the artificial systems are only able to supply detoxication functions of the liver. In some cases, this might not be enough to save patients. An alternative is the design of bioartificial liver. A simplistic approach consists in considering such a device as a bioreactor based on synthetic elements able to offer an adequate environment to the liver cells. This environment would in turn lead to the maintenance of efficient functions of the cells aiming at liver supply, when placed in a bioreactor located in an extracorporeal circuit. The mandatory requirements for acceptable cell viability and functions in a bioartificial liver (BAL) are tentatively listed below, according to a biotechnological point of view ... 

The electrical properties of devices constructed with biomaterials follow the same physical laws as do conventional microelectronic devices and thus equivalent-circuit analysis can be used as a design tool for bioelectronics. What sets biomolecular (and synthetic molecular) electronic devices apart from conventional electronic devices is the exploitation of the vast repertoire of organic and biological chemical reactions and the fact that molecular devices can be constructed with a dimension in the nanometer scale (nanotechnology and nanobiology). 

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