Northwestern Events Calendar: Event Series

Northwestern Events Calendar

Apr

2018

BTP Seminar Series, Ahmad Khalil

SHOW DETAILS

When: Wednesday, April 4, 2018
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM CT

Where: Technological Institute, L361, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208 map it

Contact: Emily Kocevar (847) 491-2623

Group: McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)

Category: Lectures & Meetings

Description:

Biotechnology in the Age of Synthetic Biology

We are entering a golden age in biotechnology. On the one hand, advances in synthetic biology are allowing us to rapidly and predictively engineer cellular behavior from genetic “parts”. These customized, genetically engineered cells hold great promise for improving therapeutics, diagnostics, animal models, and industrial biotechnological processes. On the other hand, a recent convergence of several open-source technologies – e.g. inexpensive additive manufacturing, DIY software/hardware, and cloud computing – are enabling the in-lab fabrication of new, cost-effective, and custom laboratory platforms. These platforms, which include microfluidics, have the potential to miniaturize, automate, and increase the throughput and dimensionality of biological experiments. Common to these efforts is the idea that complex, customized systems can be engineered by the user from modular building blocks.

Biography: Ahmad (Mo) Khalil is Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and the Associate Director of the Biological Design Center at Boston University, and a Visiting Scholar at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. His laboratory develops synthetic biology approaches to examine and engineer the functions of living cells, such as how they make decisions and communicate. He is recipient of numerous awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), NIH New Innovator Award, NSF CAREER Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award, and a Hartwell Foundation Biomedical Research Award, and has received numerous awards for teaching excellence at both the Department and College levels. Mo was an HHMI Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. James Collins at Boston University. He obtained his Ph.D. with Dr. Angela Belcher at MIT, and his B.S. (Phi Beta Kappa) from Stanford University.

Apr

2018