Chemistry plays an important role in the emerging field of synthetic biology, providing the technologies that enable much of the research. In particular, chemical synthetic biology is concerned with the synthesis of new biological macromolecular structures (proteins and nucleic acids) and minimal life forms (semi-synthetic minimal cells) not found in nature, and - in contrast to other aspects of synthetic biology - without the use of genetic manipulation.

With contributions from leading internationals experts in the field, Chemical Synthetic Biology shows how chemistry underpins synthetic biology. Topics covered include:

• what roles do chemical tools perform in synthetic biology?
• synthetic nucleic acids, including never born RNAs and peptide nucleic acids (PNAs)
• searching for de novo totally random amino acid sequences
• random-sequence proteins consisting of five kinds of primitive amino acids
• experimental approaches for early evolution of protein function
• synthetic genetic codes as the basis of synthetic life
• towards safe genetically modified organisms through the chemical diversification of nucleic acids
• the minimal ribosome
• semi-synthetic minimal living cells
• replicators: components for systems chemistry
• biosafety, biosecurity, IPR and ethical challenges of chemical synthetic biology

Chemical Synthetic Biology 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.