In this paper we study how to shape temporal pulses to switch a bistable system between its stable steady states. Our motivation for
pulse-based control comes from applications in synthetic biology, where it is generally difficult to implement real-time feedback control
systems due to technical limitations in sensors and actuators. We show that for monotone bistable systems, the estimation of the set of
all pulses that switch the system reduces to the computation of one non-increasing curve. We provide an efficient algorithm to compute
this curve and illustrate the results with a genetic bistable system commonly used in synthetic biology. We also extend these results to
models with parametric uncertainty and provide a number of examples and counterexamples that demonstrate the power and limitations
of the current theory. In order to show the full potential of the framework, we consider the problem of inducing oscillations in a monotone
biochemical system using a combination of temporal pulses and event-based control. Our results provide an insight into the dynamics of
bistable systems under external inputs and open up numerous directions for future investigation.