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SUMMARY:Cafe Synthetique: Engineering Living Systems - Dr Somenath Bakshi\
 , Dhruva Raman (Department of Engineering)
DTSTART:20190617T170000Z
DTEND:20190617T190000Z
UID:TALK126055@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Alexandra Ting
DESCRIPTION:ENGINEERING LIVING SYSTEMS: FROM GENETIC CIRCUITS TO MICROBIAL
  COMMUNITIES\nSomenath Bakshi (Department of Engineering)\n\nDespite the r
 apid success of synthetic biology\, synthetic circuits have been much less
  accurate and robust than natural ones\, which has made it virtually impos
 sible to connect synthetic modules into reliable networks. The stochastic 
 nature of gene-expression\, the unpredictable dynamics of the ‘unknown
 ’ parts of intracellular genetic networks with which the circuit interac
 ts\, and the fluctuating environment in which cells live have made their o
 peration fundamentally circumstantial.\n\nIn order to design circuits that
  perform reliably\, we are developing platforms that enable quantitative e
 valuation of the circuits in vivo with single-cell resolution and near-per
 fect control of growth-conditions. These platforms are enabling us to anal
 yze and mitigate the effects of stochasticity\, cellular interference\, an
 d environmental perturbation. We are also extending our interference assay
  to identify reliable elements\, and design autonomous directed evolution 
 platforms to engineer parts with improved functionalities in the native co
 ntext. Another major goal of the lab is to replicate such approaches towar
 ds building robust and resilient synthetic microbial communities\, which a
 re cellular equivalents to genetic circuits\, and relate to microbial netw
 orks in a similar way as the gene-circuits do to genetic network. Building
  such microbial circuits as motifs for microbial interaction network not o
 nly paves the way for understanding the modes of interaction in natural co
 mmunities\, but also to create novel functions that will surpass the limit
 s of biotechnological potentials of individual microbes.\n\nDESIGN PRINCIP
 LES OF DEGENERACY\nDhruva Raman (O'Leary Lab\, Department of Engineering)\
 n\nA key feature of many biological systems is that different system compo
 nents display seemingly similar functional roles\, and can thus be 'knocke
 d out' without greatly hurting system function. A commonly cited purpose o
 f this degeneracy is to robustify the system against component failure. In
  this talk we highlight a different functional benefit. We show how degene
 racy allows adaptive systems to faster optimise their performance in a cha
 nging environment\, when they only have limited\, noisy information on how
  to do so. We use neural circuits learning to optimally process inputs as 
 a specific case study\, and hope to discuss more general biological implic
 ations with the audience.\n\n---\nCafé Synthetique is the monthly meetup 
 for the Cambridge synthetic biology community with informal talks\, discus
 sion and pub snacks. It is kindly sponsored by Cambridge Consultants.
LOCATION:Panton Arms 43 Panton Street CB2 1HL\, Cambridge
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