(556b) Programmable Synthetic Biomolecular Condensates for Cellular Control

The formation of biomolecular condensates mediated by phase separation plays a critical role in controlling diverse cellular functions in nature. This has recently inspired the use of phase separation to design synthetic systems. While design rules of phase separation have been established for many synthetic intrinsically disordered proteins, most efforts have focused on investigating their phase transition behaviors in a test tube. It remains unclear whether and to what extent these engineered components can mediate phase separation in a living cell and drive specific cellular functions. In this talk, I will present a rational approach to enable programmability of the formation and the property of synthetic condensates toward realizing target cellular functions. This generalizable strategy lays the foundation for engineering designer biomolecular condensates for diverse synthetic-biology applications.