CenTroN - Center for Biological Design in Trondheim

Biotechnology, the application of engineering and basic science to living organisms for the generation of useful products, is a Key Enabling Technology with enormous impact on modern life. Our activities are focused on the part of biotechnology called synthetic biology, an emerging field where basic science in biology is combined with engineering to allow the rational design of new biological functions or the re-design of naturally existing functions. While the promise of our  area of research is significant, many challenges must be solved before synthetic biology will be comparable to disciplines such as electrical or mechanical engineering.

We are a multi-institution initiative with members from both NTNU and SINTEF, and our participants have broad expertise in

• genetic engineering and protein expression
• MS metabolomics and NMR
• bioenergetics and photosynthesis
• computational and systems biology

In addition to our research, we organize the NTNU iGEM team and maintain a portfolio of synthetic biology relevant M.Sc. projects.