Abstract
Multicellularity enables organisms and symbiotic systems to achieve complex tasks through collective emergent phenomena and division of labor among cells. My lab utilizes synthetic biology, biophysics, systems biology, and interactive approaches to facilitate the engineering, control and understanding of such multicell systems. I will speak about three projects: (1) We developed the first synthetic and optogenetic approaches to cell-cell and cell-surface adhesion that enables the self-assembly and patterning of bacterial aggregates (‘Biofilm Lithography’) [Jin PNAS’18], [Glass Cell’18]. Applications include the understanding of biofilm dynamics, material science, modular compound synthesis, and bioremediation. (2) We discovered polygonal swimming behaviors in Euglena cells in response to light [Tsang Nature Physics’18]. I will discuss how this enables efficient phototaxis strategies, and how multimodal light-stimuli enable to program the behavior of many such microswimmers. (3) Modern biotechnology gets increasingly powerful to manipulate biology - but no platform exists to truly interact and program such processes, certainly not with the convenience of everyday electronic devices. I will provide the rational for such “Interactive Bio-Technology” and demonstrate applications such as swarm programming languages, biology cloud experimentation labs, tangible museum exhibits, and biotic video games [Lam Nature Biotech’19], [Washington PNAS’19], [Lam CHI’20].
About the Speaker
Biology at the University of Arizona (with courtesy affiliations in Applied Mathematics and Biomedical Engineering). His research seeks to make it easier to engineer and program multicellular biological systems, circuits and devices in order to foster the human condition. He runs an interdisciplinary lab integrating diverse areas like synthetic biology, biophysics, humancomputer interaction design, and embedded cyber-physical systems. He received his Diploma in theoretical solid-state physics at the Technical University Dresden, did his PhD in experimental biophysics at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, followed by a postdoc at the California Institute of Technology. He then became an Assistant Professor for Bioengineering and Biophysics at Stanford University before joining the University of Arizona.
https://riedel-kruse.arizona.edu/
Host: Professor Mattia Gazzola
