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TinkerCell is a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tool for synthetic biology. Since synthetic biology is a rapidly evolving field, here are the issues which were taken into consideration when designing TinkerCell:

-modeling techniques in biology are still at a developmental stage
-experimental techniques are constantly evolving, especially automation and directed evolution methods
-databases of biological components are still maturing

In summary, TinkerCell is designed with the anticipation that the future of synthetic biology will be an intricate interplay between a variety of experimental techniques, databases that store results from experiments, and mathematical models explaining different aspects of the experiments.

FEATURES:

· Customizable hierarchy of biological parts
· Attributes (e.g. sequence) for characterizing parts
· Drawing program for designing part graphics
· Multi-threaded simulations for speed
· Automatic generation of complex reactions with intermediate steps