Title: Cell-free synthetic biology: a strategy for prototyping parts, pathways, xenobiotics and complex systems
Date and Time: Nov 18, 2024 at 1:00pm
Location: KAIS 2020/2030
Refreshments will be served at 12:50pm
Abstract
Synthetic biology is a transformative technology that provides a design framework to engineer living systems at the genetic level for a variety of applications. The field is built around the Design-Build-Test-Learn cycle where knowledge and genetic parts can be computationally compiled to perform specific functions in living chassis Cell-free transcription/translation systems (known as CFPS or TX-TL) have recently been re-evaluated as a promising platform for enabling the synthetic biology design cycle in terms of rapidly prototyping genetic designs. My lab first showed that CFPS can provide a reproducible prototyping platform for regulatory elements where measurements in vitro are consistent with similar measurements in cells. The advantage of being non-GMO allows rapid automated assays for characterizing parts and genetic circuit designs as well as applications like natural product discovery and biosensor designs. My lab has been interested in exploring cell free extracts from different non-model organisms and i will also present exemplar of our work on biosensors, production of xenobiotics, and reconstituting complex biological systems as well as more recent work on engineering exosomes using cell free expression systems.
Biography
Paul Freemont, professor at Imperial College London, is the co-founder of the Imperial College Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation and co-founder and co-director of the National UK Innovation and Knowledge Centre for Synthetic Biology (SynbiCITE – since 2013). His research is focused on developing automation and biofoundries and cell-free systems for specific synthetic biology applications. He is a council member of the US Engineering Biology Research Consortium and co-chair of the newly formed UK Governments Engineering Biology Steering Group and sits on the UK Governments Biosecurity Leadership Council. He is a member of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Synthetic Biology and is currently leading a US-funded Task Force on Engineering Biology Metrics and Technical Standards for Global Bioeconomy. He is also co-founder and founding chair of the Global Biofoundry Alliance. He is a passionate advocate for the commercialisation of engineering biology and is co-founder of the Imperial spin-out Solena Materials Ltd developing designer protein fibres and also of SynBioVen Ltd, an early-stage seed investment company for engineering biology start-ups in the UK.