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SUMMARY:Engineering and Control of Biological circuits: from yeast to mamm
 alian cells - Dr. Diego di Bernardo\, Research Assistant Professor (Ricerc
 atore)\, University of Naples “Federico II”
DTSTART:20120525T130000Z
DTEND:20120525T140000Z
UID:TALK37586@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Rachel Fogg
DESCRIPTION:We will first describe the development and application of a me
 thod to control at will the expression of a protein embedded in a complex 
 gene network in a growing population of yeast cells. In order to achieve t
 his goal\, a control strategy has been designed to automatically regulate 
 the administration of inducer molecules to the cells\, by comparing the ac
 tual protein expression level in the cell population\, with the desired ex
 pression level. We designed and implemented an integrated platform based o
 n a microfluidic device\, a time-lapse microscopy apparatus\, and a set of
  motorized syringes\, all controlled by a computer. We tested the platform
  to force yeast cells to express a desired time-varying amount of a report
 er gene\, part of a complex gene network\, over thousands of minutes. We w
 ill then describe the construction and modeling of a transcriptional posit
 ive feedback loop in mammalian cells\, which we show experimentally to be 
 able to slow down the dynamics of the system\; we will then show how addin
 g a post-trascriptional negative feedback loop\, via a microRNA\, modifies
  the dynamics of the systems and protects from extrinsic noise in a cell p
 opulation.
LOCATION:Cambridge University Engineering Department\, LR5
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