Dylan Hirsch (COLLINS & DEL VECCHIO LABS)

Controlling Subpopulation Fractions of Bistable Biomolecular Circuits: Theory, Design, Simulation

In applications of synthetic biology, particularly in the design of physiologically faithful organoids, one often wishes to balance the ratio of cell types in a given population. In this talk, we present some conceptual and theoretical ideas relevant to this problem. We subsequently use the insight gained from the theory to construct a specific circuit for achieving subpopulation ratio control and validate its efficacy via several simulations.

Catherine Della Santina (BOYER & BOYDEN LABS)

Live Tissue Transparency: Engineering High Refractive Index Proteins as Optical Tools

Light is a powerful tool to manipulate and observe complex biological systems, but current microscopy techniques are unable to rapidly image living tissue beyond a few hundred microns in depth. This fundamental limitation is caused by optical scattering at mismatched refractive index interfaces between the lipid and aqueous fractions of cells and their environment. Here, we optically engineer cells with protein-based tools to reduce light scattering and ultimately enable high-speed imaging of larger tissue volumes.