James J. Collins is Termeer Professor of Bioengineering in the Department of Biological Engineering and Institute for Medical Engineering & Science. His research group works in synthetic biology and systems biology, with a particular focus on using network biology approaches to study antibiotic action, bacterial defense mechanisms, and the emergence of resistance. A recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a Rhodes Scholarship, a MacArthur "Genius" Award, an NIH Director's Pioneer Award, a Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Award, as well as several teaching awards, Professor Collins is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and a charter fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. Collins is also affiliated with the Broad Institute and the Wyss Institute. Collins lab website: http://collinslab.mit.edu/

Amy Keating studied physics as an undergraduate at Harvard College and obtained her Ph.D. in 1998 from the University of California, Los Angeles. In her graduate work she applied computational and experimental methods in physical organic chemistry to the study of carbene reaction mechanisms. She started working on protein interactions as a postdoctoral fellow in the Whitehead Institute and the MIT Chemistry Department. The Keating lab uses computational and experimental methods to study protein structure, function and interactions. A member of the MIT Biology Department since 2002, Keating joined the Department of Biological Engineering in 2014. Keating lab website: http://mit.edu/biology/keating/KeatingLab/Home.html