A detailed overview of the important aspects of the emerging field of synthetic biology. The field of synthetic biology spans the boundaries of biology, chemistry and engineering with the goal of engineering biomolecular systems and cellular capabilities for a variety of applications. This course will cover three foundational parts of synthetic biology, including the biological background of molecular genetics, gene regulation, experimental methods for genetic circuit construction and networks/network modeling. Successful applications of synthetic biology in biofuels, biomedicine and other areas will be discussed in detail to demonstrate the potential impact of the field in these areas.