BioE Seminar Series: John Dueber, PhD

Strategies for Reprogramming Control over Engineered Signaling and Metabolic Pathways. John Dueber, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, UC Berkeley. The grand challenge of programming complex cellular behaviors such as metabolism and signal processing will require multiple tools. My lab is focusing on engineering control at multiple levels: genetic circuitry through the combinatorial expression optimization of multi-enzyme pathways, protein circuitry through the engineering of enzyme switches for rapid spatial control over enzymatic activity, and synthetic organelle construction for the insulation of engineered chemistry from the rest of the cellular milieu. Ultimately, we envision this to more adeptly mimic the impressively sophisticated natural cellular processes to take advantage of inherent advantages of microbes, namely the ability to rapidly self-replicate on inexpensive and sustainable media, catalyze difficult chemical reactions with impressive specificity, and accurately integrate multiple environmental signals.