Faculty Seminar Patrick Barth : From Protein Dynamics to Synthetic Biology: New Frontiers in Protein Design
Event details
| Date | 21.11.2025 |
| Hour | 12:15 › 13:15 |
| Speaker | Patrick Barth |
| Location | Online |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
| Event Language | English |
Abstract
Proteins are the molecular workhorses of life, and engineering them offers vast opportunities to deepen our understanding of biology, build new systems, and develop transformative medicines. To date, protein design has largely centered on rigid structures and binders, leaving many biomolecular functions unexplored. Yet these functions often depend on protein motions, which remain notoriously difficult to model and design.
We are developing methods at the intersection of physics and AI to capture protein dynamics, enabling both the reprogramming of natural proteins and the de novo creation of new functions. I will illustrate the power of these approaches by expanding the design space of protein binders, membrane proteins, signaling proteins, and molecular switches. Lastly, I will show how these designed molecules can dynamically control cellular functions for fundamental, synthetic biology, and therapeutic applications.
Bio
Patrick Barth is an Associate Professor at EPFL and an associate member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. He received his PhD from the University of Paris and the Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique in Saclay, France. He then pursued postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley and the University of Washington with Tom Alber and David Baker, where he developed pioneering computational methods for protein structure prediction and design. He began his independent career at Baylor College of Medicine and later joined EPFL, where his laboratory integrates computational and experimental approaches to advance protein design, unravel the molecular mechanisms of signal transduction, and engineer proteins with novel functions for synthetic biology and therapeutic applications. His contributions have been recognized with several honors, including the NIH NCI Career Development Award, the Eli Lilly Research Award, and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Translational Research Award.
This seminar is part of the evaluation of Prof. Patrick Barth for the promotion to Full Professor.
Proteins are the molecular workhorses of life, and engineering them offers vast opportunities to deepen our understanding of biology, build new systems, and develop transformative medicines. To date, protein design has largely centered on rigid structures and binders, leaving many biomolecular functions unexplored. Yet these functions often depend on protein motions, which remain notoriously difficult to model and design.
We are developing methods at the intersection of physics and AI to capture protein dynamics, enabling both the reprogramming of natural proteins and the de novo creation of new functions. I will illustrate the power of these approaches by expanding the design space of protein binders, membrane proteins, signaling proteins, and molecular switches. Lastly, I will show how these designed molecules can dynamically control cellular functions for fundamental, synthetic biology, and therapeutic applications.
Bio
Patrick Barth is an Associate Professor at EPFL and an associate member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. He received his PhD from the University of Paris and the Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique in Saclay, France. He then pursued postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley and the University of Washington with Tom Alber and David Baker, where he developed pioneering computational methods for protein structure prediction and design. He began his independent career at Baylor College of Medicine and later joined EPFL, where his laboratory integrates computational and experimental approaches to advance protein design, unravel the molecular mechanisms of signal transduction, and engineer proteins with novel functions for synthetic biology and therapeutic applications. His contributions have been recognized with several honors, including the NIH NCI Career Development Award, the Eli Lilly Research Award, and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Translational Research Award.
This seminar is part of the evaluation of Prof. Patrick Barth for the promotion to Full Professor.
Practical information
- Informed public
- Free
Organizer
- Deanship SV
Contact
- Manuelle Mary