Mirna Kheir Gouda (VOIGT LAB)

Engineering Bacteria for the Biodegradation and Upcycling of Plastics

Plastic pollution poses a significant threat to the economy and health of human society. With advances in synthetic biology, microbes can be engineered to derive energy from plastic pollutants and produce value-added products. Such approach helps build a sustainable circular economy platform for plastic waste management. Here we present our work on engineering bacteria for the bioassimilation and upcycling of nylon 6 and nylon 6,6 monomers.

Daniel Zhu (LAUFFENBURGER LAB)

A Scalable Toolkit for Multidimensional Spatiotemporal Modeling of Spatial Transcriptomics

Cells exist in complex 3D microenvironments shaped by the collective activities of cells of many states that form complex communication networks, together dictating tissue-level dynamic functions that are difficult to decompose. To complement emergent spatial genomics technologies, we present a unified framework for single-cell resolution spatiotemporal modeling, comprising computational developments to facilitate analysis of dynamical systems. Moreover, we demonstrate usage of select functions to interrogate the processes of wound healing and embryogenesis.