ABSTRACT The increasing use of engineered organisms for industrial, clinical, and environmental applications poses a growing risk of spreading hazardous biological entities into the

environment. To address this biosafety issue, significant effort has been invested in creating ways to confine these organisms and transgenic materials. Emerging technologies in synthetic

biology involving genetic circuit engineering, genome editing, and gene expression regulation have led to the development of novel biocontainment systems. In this perspective, we highlight

recent advances in biocontainment and suggest a number of approaches for future development, which may be applied to overcome remaining challenges in safeguard implementation. Access through

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CELL-FREE GENE EXPRESSION Article 15 July 2021 AN ENDORIBONUCLEASE-BASED FEEDFORWARD CONTROLLER FOR DECOUPLING RESOURCE-LIMITED GENETIC MODULES IN MAMMALIAN CELLS Article Open access 10

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Download references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We thank E. Cameron for his critical review and editing of the manuscript. The work was supported by the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired

Engineering, the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency grant HDTRA1-14-1-0006, and Air Force Office of Scientific Research grant FA9550-14-1-0060. J.W.L. was

also supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (2018R1C1B3007409), and by

the Marine Biotechnology Program (Marine BioMaterials Research Center) funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, Korea. C.T.Y.C. was also supported by the University of Texas System

Rising STARs Program and by the Welch Foundation (grant # BP-0037). AUTHOR INFORMATION Author notes * These authors contributed equally: Jeong Wook Lee, Clement T. Y. Chan. AUTHORS AND

AFFILIATIONS * Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA Jeong Wook Lee, Shimyn Slomovic & James J. Collins * Department of Chemical

Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, Gyeongbuk, Republic of Korea Jeong Wook Lee * Institute for Medical Engineering & Science, Massachusetts Institute of

Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA Clement T. Y. Chan & James J. Collins * Department of Biological Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA Clement T. Y. Chan & James J. Collins *

Synthetic Biology Center, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA Clement T. Y. Chan & James J. Collins * Department of Biology, The University of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, TX, USA Clement T. Y. Chan *

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The University of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, TX, USA Clement T. Y. Chan * Harvard–MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

James J. Collins * Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA James J. Collins Authors * Jeong Wook Lee View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed 

Google Scholar * Clement T. Y. Chan View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Shimyn Slomovic View author publications You can also search for

this author inPubMed Google Scholar * James J. Collins View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to James J.

Collins. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing interests. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to

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Slomovic, S. _et al._ Next-generation biocontainment systems for engineered organisms. _Nat Chem Biol_ 14, 530–537 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-018-0056-x Download citation *

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