Towards Rule-based Knowledge-Based Systems for Synthetic Biology

The design of novel synthetic biological systems involves various design decisions. Biologists mine knowledge usually from the literature and utilize the acquired knowledge in the decision making process, making it hard to reenact the design rationale of functioning biological systems. Moreover, expert knowledge gets lost. We introduce the applicability of Knowledge-Based Systems (KBS), enabling to electronically share, exchange, and communicate design rationale formulated as rules. The ultimate goal is to computationally support biologists in the decision making process and to understand and learn how and why biological systems function or fail to function.