Author Archives: Alex Prybutok

We’re excited to share a fun perspective published in GEN Biotech on recent work from Michael Elowitz’s lab to engineer synthetic quorum sensing in mammalian cells! Congratulations to Hailey and Gauri. Check out our commentary here and the original study here!

We’re excited to share that our study investigating nanoscale decoys as SARS-CoV-2 inhibitors is out in Small! We learned that engineered decoy nanoparticles are potent viral inhibitors and appear quite resistant to viral evolutionary escape. We hope that the design rules and performance metrics we identified will accelerate the development and preclinical evaluation of this exciting new class of antiviral therapeutics. Congratulations to Taylor, Devin, and Roxi and our excellent collaborator Dr. Neha Kamat. Check out the paper here! Additionally, check out some press about the paper here!

Congrats Iva and Alex

Congratulations Beth!

We’re thrilled to announce the publication of a review in which we survey the existing mammalian synthetic biology toolkit of protein-based receptors and signal-processing components, highlighting efforts to evolve and integrate some of the foundational synthetic receptor systems. This is the review we wish existed, so we wrote it ourselves! Congratulations to Hailey, and our excellent collaborators Janvie and Dr. Leonardo Morsut. Check out the paper here!

We’re thrilled to announce the publication of GAMES, a model development workflow for rigorous characterization of synthetic genetic systems. Congratulations to Kate and Joe, and our excellent collaborators Dr. Niall Mangan and Dr. Neda Bagheri. We hope that GAMES will be useful for synthetic and systems biology researchers interested in systematic, reproducible dynamic model development. Check out the paper here!

We’re excited to introduce our work demonstrating that biologics called “decoy” vesicles can inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection and are robust to multiple problematic viral mutations. Congratulations to Taylor and Devin, and our excellent collaborator Dr. Neha Kamat. We hope that the engineering insights identified in this study will accelerate the development of this exciting new class of antiviral therapeutics (for COVID-19 and/or other diseases). Check out the preprint here!

We’re thrilled to introduce GAMES, a model development workflow for rigorous characterization of synthetic genetic systems. Congratulations to Kate and Joe, and our excellent collaborators Dr. Niall Mangan and Dr. Neda Bagheri. We hope that GAMES will be useful for synthetic and systems biology researchers interested in systematic, reproducible dynamic model development. Check out the preprint here!

Congrats Hailey!

We’re excited to announce that our new review on the power of using process control concepts to understand and build genetic programs in mammalian cells is out in Current Opinions in Systems Biology! Congrats to Kate, Hailey, and Katie on this informative review (with beautiful figures!)! Check out the new paper here!

Congrats Gauri!

Congrats Roxi!

Congrats Amparo!

Congrats Alex!

Congratulations to Taylor!

We’re excited that SPORT, a computational protein design strategy for adjusting reconstitution propensity to fall into the sweet spot for your application, has officially been released in Nature Chemical Biology today. This Rosetta-based pipeline identifies mutations that tweak reconstitution propensity so that a split protein comes together only when needed – a property that is useful for creating protein-based sensors, biochemical assays, and parts for synthetic biology. Congratulations to Taylor, Jon, Will, Elizabeth, Alex, and our excellent and key collaborators Srivatsan Raman and Tony Meger on this fantastic effort! Check out our new paper here! Additionally, check out some press from Northwestern Engineering on the study here!

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We are thrilled to announce our paper synthetic receptor mechanisms is out in Synthetic Biology today! In this study,  took a deep dive into Modular Extracellular Sensor Architecture (MESA) design, identified several handles for substantially improving performance, and applied these findings to build next-gen receptors. We hope that these insights will help guide the use of MESA receptors for many applications and may also inform the design and refinement of other synthetic receptors. Congrats to Hailey, Patrick, Joe, Anthony, Taylor, Lauren, Everett, and Amy! Check out our paper here!

You can read more about the highlight here.

Katie is our lab’s first recipient of this award, and it will enable a really exciting new collaboration with the Mangan lab at Northwestern University. Congratulations, Katie!!!

Congrats Joe!

Congrats Jon!

This is an extremely competitive award, and a high honor! Congrats Patrick!

Congrats Devin!

This is the highest honor granted by the Program in Biological Sciences! Congrats Anthony!

Science highlights the quorum licensing paper discussing the “wisdom of the crowd” strategy used by cells to make decisions as a population in an article covering highlights from papers published in other journals.

You can the piece here.

Kate was interviewed by the Northwestern International Institute for Nanotechnology. The interview covers a range of topics, including what got her interested in engineering, her research interests, and her personal challenges and highlights from Northwestern! Thanks for sharing your important and deeply personal story and inspiring others, Kate!

Read the full interview here.

She presented her research to a panel of professors and was selected for the award! Congrats Liz!

Joe was interviewed by the Northwestern International Institute for Nanotechnology. The interview covers a range of topics, including what got him interested in engineering, his research interests, his hobbies outside of work, and highlights from his time here at Northwestern!

Read the full interview here.

In a powerful collaboration between the Leonard, Lucks, Mangan, and Jewett labs, NU SynBio teams up to create a one-step diagnostic tool, and recently received funding for the effort. Congrats to the whole team on this massive effort to aid in the current pandemic!

Check out some press about the grant here and here.

We’re thrilled to share our new paper studying next gen synthetic receptors with improved performance and expanded sensing options by taking cues from nature (and good old biophysics). Congratulations to Hailey, Patrick , Joe, Anthony, Taylor, Lauren, Everett, and Amy! Check out our pre-print here.

Congrats both!

Check out the press piece, published by Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, on COMET, our new platform for composing genetic programs in mammalian cells!

We’re thrilled to introduce SPORT, a computational protein design strategy for adjusting reconstitution propensity to fall into the sweet spot for your application. Congratulations to Taylor, Jon, Will, Elizabeth, Alex, and our excellent and key collaborators Srivatsan Raman and Tony Meger. This exciting and collaborative work involved a lot of hard work on both the experimental and computational efforts, and is an exciting step in split protein optimization for a wide array of applications! Check out our preprint here!

Dario Robleto returns to Northwestern as the new Artist-at-Large, working with faculty all over campus to discuss the implications of their research on society and ethics. Several professors in the Center for Synthetic Biology, including Josh Leonard, Danielle Tullman-Ercek, and Julius Lucks, are featured in a video about the collaboration.

To learn more about this exciting, and thought provoking collaboration, check out the video here!

Congrats to Will!

Congrats to Jon!

Josh Leonard’s commentary was featured in a news article in Chemical & Engineering News in July featuring synthetic biologist Martin Fusseneger’s menthol-triggered insulin-producing cells. Josh commented saying the work is “an important first step”, as it was the first time a gene circuit was made entirely from human parts.

Find the full news article here.

Suchitra, Daniel, Austin, Joseph, and Amy all graduated this year with a masters!

Brandon, Vis, and Parth graduate from undergraduate programs, and Vis and Parth continue on to medical school!

Good luck to all in the next phase of their lives! We will miss you!

The Block Museum of Art hosted “Exploring Ethics: Across Art, Humanities, and Science”, a public event that provided researchers in various fields and artists a platform to share their experiences in encountering, raising, and answering new ethical questions as well as engage with the public on these topics. The event featured Northwestern synthetic biologists Danielle Tullman-Ercek, Julius Lucks, and Josh Leonard, as well as Artist-at-Large Dario Robleto and professor of medical education and anthropology Megan Crowley Matoka. Discussions ranged from capturing the ethics of science as art to engage two separate fields and the public, how to best get research to the point of need, and the cultural and ethical impact of organ transplant donation.

See the press release about the event here.

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The conference took place from May 17th-19th on Northwestern University’s campus and brought in researchers from around the world with over 150 in attendance. The first ever pre-conference workshop tutorial series took place on Friday, May 17th, providing an open forum for those new to and experienced in mammalian synthetic biology to ask questions to experts about topics such as sensing, cell signaling and differentiation, gene expression, and protein engineering, with professors Julius Lucks, Leonardo Morsut, Tara Deans, and Danielle Tullman-Ercek leading the discussions. Saturday and Sunday featured talks from experts in mammalian synthetic biology such as Linda Griffith, Melody Swartz, Ron Weiss, Martin Fussenegger, and many more. Leonard Lab member Devin Stranford gave a talk on her extracellular vesicle research and its applications to treating HIV. Additionally, Leonard Lab members Joe Muldoon, Taylor Dolberg, Patrick Donahue, Alex Prybutok, Kate Dray, Joseph Draut, Brandon Lim, Vis Kandula, Parth Shah, and Anthony Kang presented posters at the poster session on Saturday evening. Sunday’s talks concluded with a panel discussing the broader ethical implications and impacts of synthetic biology research, featuring Artist-at-Large Dario Robleto, bioethicist Laurie Zoloth, and historians Ben Hurlbut and Gaymon Bennett. Josh was presented with a commemorative plaque for helping organize and host the conference, which will take place by the Centre for Synthetic and Systems Biology at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

See the full press release about the conference here.

We’re thrilled to share our work on macrophage quorum licensing. Congratulations to Joe, Yishan, and our key collaborator Neda Bagheri! This exciting work involved both experimental and computational efforts and a lot of hard work! Check out the published work here and the NU press piece here!