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SUMMARY:IMX Seminar Series - Biologically fabricated materials from engine
 ered microbes
DTSTART:20210517T131500
DTEND:20210517T141500
DTSTAMP:20260505T021148Z
UID:d22117f6a5901e31d647240fef1f4ca0ceda5f7a1c3141130c8e8dbc
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Neel Joshi\, Northeastern University\, USA\nThe intersec
 tion between synthetic biology and materials science is an underexplored a
 rea with great potential to positively affect our daily lives\, with appli
 cations ranging from manufacturing to medicine. My group is interested in 
 harnessing the biosynthetic potential of microbes\, not only as factories 
 for the production of raw materials\, but as fabrication plants that can o
 rchestrate the assembly of complex functional materials. We call this appr
 oach “biologically fabricated materials”\, a process whose goal is to 
 genetically program microbes to assemble materials from biomolecular build
 ing blocks without the need for time consuming and expensive purification 
 protocols or specialized equipment. Accordingly\, we have developed Biofil
 m Integrated Nanofiber Display (BIND)\, which relies on the biologically d
 irected assembly of biofilm matrix proteins of the curli system in E. coli
 . We demonstrate that bacterial cells can be programmed to synthesize a ra
 nge of functional materials with straightforward genetic engineering techn
 iques. The resulting materials are highly customizable and easy to fabrica
 te\, and we are investigating their use for practical uses ranging from bi
 oremediation to engineered therapeutic probiotics. Another project in the 
 group focuses on fabricating bioplastics from engineered microbes producin
 g customized curli fibers.\nBio: Neel Joshi is an Associate Professor in t
 he Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Northeastern University
 . He completed his PhD at UC Berkeley in the lab of Matt Francis and a pos
 tdoc at Boston University in the lab of Mark Grinstaff before starting his
  independent academic career at Harvard University and then moving to Nort
 heastern in 2020. He is broadly interested in topics related to biological
 ly inspired materials\, protein engineering\, self-assembly\, and biointer
 faces. His group works at the intersection of biomaterials science and syn
 thetic biology. Recent projects in the group have focused on repurposing b
 acterial biofilms and their matrix proteins for biotechnological and biome
 dical applications.\n 
LOCATION:https://epfl.zoom.us/j/95940364570
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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