(466g) Advancing the Frontiers of Design-Driven Engineering in Mammalian Synthetic Biology

Engineered cell-based therapies are a transformative medical frontier. Employing living cells to perform sophisticated and complex tasks within the human body has already revolutionized the treatment of some cancers, and the prospect of extending these capabilities to promote health in myriad ways is now within reach. However, realizing the full potential of this approach will necessitate the development of improved engineering tools, ranging from improved biological technologies to computational and conceptual frameworks to guide their deployment. In this talk, I will present recent advances made toward achieving the vision of design-driven engineering of novel mammalian cellular programs. This presentation will include both a new library of “parts” for composing gene expression functions in mammalian cells and a set of computational tools and design principles that enable the efficient generation of genetic programs that perform in a manner that is customizable, predictable, and robust.