The Institute Colloquium: Cybergenetics: Feedback control of living cells
Date
Monday, April 7, 2014 16:30 - 17:30
Speaker
Mustafa Khammash (ETH Zurich)
Location
Raiffeisen Lecture Hall, Central Building
Series
Colloquium
Tags
Institute Colloquium
Contact
Url
Norbert Wieners 1948 Cybernetics presented a vision unifying the study of control and communication in the animal and the machine. Predating the discovery of the structure of DNA and the ensuing molecular biology revolution, applications in the life sciences at the time were limited. Today, the confluence of modern genetic manipulation techniques, powerful measurement technologies, and advanced analysis methods is enabling a new area of research in which systems and control notions are used for regulating cellular processes at the gene level. This presentation describes novel analytical and experimental work that demonstrates how de novo control systems can be interfaced with living cells and used to control their dynamic behavior. The feedback systems can either be realized on a computer (in-silico control) or through genetically encoded parts (in-vivo control). The two approaches will be compared and contrasted, and applications in biotechnology and therapeutics will be described.