Our laboratory is learning how to design and build biological systems that recreate the complex functions of natural ones. Doing so can help us better understand how naturally-occurring biological systems function and evolve, and design synthetic ones that enable new and useful biological functions.
Specifically, our laboratory develops novel tools at the intersection of synthetic biology, laboratory evolution, genomics, and computation. We apply these tools across a range of organisms – from yeast to human cells to plants – which enables us to learn general principles and solve diverse problems in biology.
One focus area has been developing synthetic biology tools to dissect the molecular circuits that control gene regulation in eukaryotes. Using these tools, we reconstitute complex features of gene regulation that have been previously difficult to study in living cells, to guide fundamental discoveries in transcription, chromatin and epigenetic regulation. In turn, we apply these insights to create powerful platforms for engineering synthetic circuits to program therapeutically-relevant cellular behaviors for next-generation gene and cellular therapies.
A second focus area is developing novel laboratory and directed evolution technologies. For example, our team invented the eVOLVER, a highly customizable, scalable, and accessible continuous culture and evolution hardware platform. We apply these tools to generate biomolecules with new and improved functions to address unmet needs in biology, medicine, and biotechnology, as well as to answer fundamental questions in evolution and microbial ecology.