2005 Corporate Affiliates Program (CAP) Meeting
May 5, 2005

 

 

Engineered Computation and Communications for Synthetic Multicellular Systems
11:30 a.m. Friend Center Auditorium F101
Professor Ron Weiss

Abstract:

Cell-cell communication is a pervasive activity common to both single cell and multicellular organisms, and is used in coordinating cell behavior for a variety of tasks ranging from quorum sensing in bacteria to embryogenesis in mammalian cells.  Engineering synthetic multicellular systems to exhibit desired functions will improve our quantitative understanding of naturally occurring cell-cell communication, and will also have biotechnology applications in areas such as biosensing, biomaterial fabrication, and tissue engineering.  Here we will present theoretical and experimental results from synthetic systems implemented in bacteria and higher order organisms.  We will begin by describing how information flows through synthetic transcriptional cascades in single cells by examining noise propagation, ultrasensitivity, and impedance matching.  Understanding these issues is critical for the analysis and de novo engineering of complex gene networks 

We will then discuss several synthetic multicellular systems that have been programmed to exhibit unique coordinated cell behavior.  The first system is the pulse generator where sender cells communicate to nearby receiver cells, which then respond with a transient burst of gene expression whose amplitude and duration depends on the distance from the senders. In the second system, receiver cells have been engineered to respond to cell-cell communication signals only within prespecified ranges.  We will demonstrate how this system can be used to generate a variety of interesting spatial patterns.  In the third system, cells have been engineered to “play”

Conway ’s Game of Life, where cells live or die based on the density of their neighbors.  This system exhibits complex global emergent behavior that arises from the interaction of cells based on simple local rules.  We will finish by discussing preliminary experimental results of implementing simple synthetic gene networks and artificial cell-cell communication in yeast and mammalian cells.

Professor Ron Weiss - is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University, and also holds a faculty appointment in the Department of Molecular Biology. He received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering (2001). His research focuses primarily on Synthetic Biology, where he programs cell behavior by constructing and modeling biochemical and cellular computing systems. A major thrust of his work is the synthesis of gene networks that are engineered to perform in vivo analog and digital logic computation. He is also interested in programming cell aggregates to perform coordinated tasks using cell-cell communication with chemical diffusion mechanisms such as quorum sensing. He has constructed and tested several novel in vivo biochemical logic circuits and intercellular communication systems. Weiss is interested in both hands-on experimental work and in implementing software infrastructures for simulation and design work. For his work in Synthetic Biology, Weiss has received MIT's Technology Review Magazine's TR100 Award ("top 100 young innovators", 2003), was selected as a speaker for the National Academy of Engineering's Frontiers of Engineering Symposium (2003), received the E. Lawrence Keyes, Jr./Emerson Electric Company Faculty Advancement Award at Princeton University (2003), his research in Synthetic Biology was named by MIT's Technology Review Magazine as one of "10 emerging technologies that will change your world" (2004), and was chosen as a finalist for the World Technology Network’s Biotechnology Award (2004).