BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Memento EPFL// BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Biophysics and Engineering of Multi-cell Behaviors: Synthetic Adhe sins\, Polygonal Phototaxis\, and Moving Networks DTSTART:20191011T150000 DTEND:20191011T160000 DTSTAMP:20260510T110219Z UID:11e74b42aadcf6e28b0133205b38c17a37c59a45038333afdea42c63 CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars DESCRIPTION:Ingmar H. Riedel-Kruse is an Associate Professor in the Depart ment of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Arizona. His r esearch seeks to make it easier to engineer and program multicellular biol ogical systems\, circuits and devices in order to foster the human conditi on. He runs an interdisciplinary lab integrating diverse areas like synthe tic biology\, biophysics\, human-computer interaction design\, and embedde d cyber-physical systems. He received his Diploma in theoretical solid-sta te physics at the Technical University Dresden\, did his PhD in experiment al biophysics at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Ge netics\, followed by a postdoc at the California Institute of Technology. He was then an Assistant Professor for Bioengineering and Biophysics at St anford University before joining the University of Arizona.\nhttps://riede l-kruse.arizona.edu/\nMulti-cellularity enables organisms and symbiotic sy stems to achieve complex tasks through collective emergent phenomena and d ivision of labor among cells. My lab utilizes synthetic biology\, systems biology\, and biophysics approaches to facilitate the engineering and unde rstanding of such multi-cell assemblies. I will speak about three projects :\n(1) We developed the first synthetic and optogenetic approaches to cell -cell and cell-surface adhesion that enables the self-assembly and pattern ing of bacterial aggregates (‘Biofilm Lithography’) [Jin PNAS’18]\, [Glass Cell’18]. Using these tools\, we study how adhesion drive intersp ecies boundary formation and how antibiotic resistance develops in biofilm s.\n(2) We discovered polygonal swimming behaviors in Euglena cells in res ponse to light [Tsang Nature Physics’18]. I will discuss how this enable s efficient phototaxis strategies\, and how multimodal light-stimuli enabl e to program the behavior of many such microswimmers.\n(3) We investigate an understudied class of network models of moving networks\, i.e.\, trees where the network morphology can dynamically change while the overall mass is conserved. We successfully apply this model to various systems\, e.g.\ , slime mold behavior and cellular chemotaxis\, suggesting universal optim al behavioral strategies in motile network systems.\nOverall\, our work ai ms at transformative ability to engineer and control multi-cellular assemb lies\, which promises new biomedical applications (modular drug biosynthes is\, micro-robotics\, self-healing materials\, new infection treatment str ategies) as well as application in other areas (e.g.\, for bioremediation or as basic research tools to understand microecology and evolution). LOCATION:SV 1717 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==SV%201717 STATUS:CONFIRMED END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR