Researchers are sequencing organisms or populations on a terabyte scale every day – a process that can be referred to as “DNA reading”. DNA sequences are collected in databases and many of them are available to the community.

Synthetic biology has been a driving force for the development of DNA assembly technologies. With recent advances in technology, researchers are starting to synthesise DNA de novo, which could be referred to as “DNA writing”. These developments allow biology to move from an observational discipline towards an engineering science where the build-to-understand approach is a driving force of research. Researchers can now easily mine databases for enzymes, pathways and genomes, allowing the design, construction and characterisation of DNA constructs for heterologous expression.

In this special issue of Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology, we will explore advances and novel approaches in genome engineering and synthetic genomics to understand ventures in synthetic biology.

· Chromosome synthesis

· Genome design software

· Advances in big DNA assembly

· Genome editing technologies

· Methods to characterise synthetic genomes

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