Generative Biology: Learning to Program Cellular Machines and Circuits

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Wendell Lim, Ph.D., director, UCSF Cell Design Institute, Byers Distinguished Professor, department of cellular and molecular pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco

Speaker bio(s)

Synthetic biology is a “learning by building” approach to explore the logic of complex cellular behaviors. The Lim lab has been building a foundational toolkit of modular components to facilely rewire cell sensing, communication, gene expression, and physical interactions. These tools can be harnessed to program cells that execute novel therapeutic behaviors: immune cells that precisely kill cancers through multi-factor recognition or that locally deliver payloads that disrupt disease microenvironments. Cells with such synthetic circuits could be used to address diverse diseases, including solid cancers, autoimmunity, and degeneration. Such therapies are now entering the clinic. The Lim lab can also use these tools to explore the principles of multi-cellular self-organization and to guide morphogenesis, approaches that could prove useful for regeneration. Analyzing data from a diverse space of synthetic circuits may provide a powerful way to better understand and design complex cellular functions.

Wendell Lim is the Byers Distinguished Professor of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California San Francisco, and the Director of the UCSF Cell Design Institute and the UCSF NCI Center for Synthetic Immunology. He received his A.B. in Chemistry, summa cum laude, from Harvard College, his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and completed his postdoctoral training at Yale University. His research focuses on the design principles of molecular circuits that govern cell decision-making and responses. His lab has made contributions in understanding the molecular machinery of cell signaling and how molecular modules have been used in evolution to build novel new behaviors. More recently he has been a pioneer in the emerging field of synthetic biology, exploring how these design principles can be harnessed to engineer living cells with precision therapeutic response programs against diseases such as cancer, autoimmunity, neuroinflammation, and degeneration. 

FLS lectures will take place in Caspary Auditorium and virtually via Zoom. We recommend virtual participants log out of VPN prior to logging in to Zoom. Please do not share the link or post on social media.

Open to

Tri-Institutional