Synthetic Biology for Enhanced mRNA Functions and Animal Performance

A central goal of synthetic biology is to re-engineer DNA, RNA, protein, and living organisms for specific biological tasks. In this talk, I will highlight our work on engineering macromolecule and bacteria-animal interactions for biomedical and environmental applications. Firstly, messenger RNA-based vaccines efficiently fight against viral diseases including COVID-19. I will talk about our efforts to recode mRNA toward thermally stable and highly efficient mRNA vaccines. Secondly, programming animals’ physiology and behavior is significant in pest control and human health. I will present a bacteria-animal symbiont system in which engineered bacteria recognize modulate animal physiology through logic gates.

Biography

Dr. Qing Sun is Herbert Richardson Fellow Assistant Professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University. In 2015, she obtained her Ph.D. from the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering department at University of Delaware under the mentorship of Professor Wilfred Chen. After that, she did postdoc training under the supervision of Professor Dr. Timothy K. Lu in the Synthetic Biology Center at MIT. Her research interests are synthetic biology with advancing designs and applications. Using expertise in deep learning and experiments, she aims to develop techniques to improve human health, tackle environmental challenges, design smart materials, and alleviate the energy crisis.