SBME Research Seminar: The RNA folding problem remains open – Dr. Rhiju Das
The discovery and design of biologically important RNA molecules has lagged behind proteins, in part due to the general difficulty of three-dimensional RNA structural characterization. What are the prospects for an ‘AlphaFold moment’ for RNA? I’ll describe some recent progress in modeling RNA structure from old-fashioned and new machine learning, cryoelectron microscopy, and current and upcoming internet-scale competitions hosted on the Eterna, Kaggle, and CASP platforms.
SBME Research Seminar: The RNA folding problem remains open – Dr. Rhiju Das
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Special Seminar: Engineering Bacteria as Living Drug Delivery Systems
February 7, 2024 @ 11:00 am - 12:00 pm PST
Speaker: Tetsuhiro Harimoto, PhD (he/him)
Wednesday, Feb 7, 2024
Time: 11:00am-12:00pm Pacific time
Location: LSC 1003 LT3 + online
Zoom: https://ubc.zoom.us/j/62334561670?pwd=SVJISFJISWhIWHU1cmtWVTFmeUVLQT09
Meeting ID: 623 3456 1670
Passcode: 502196
Abstract: Engineered living cells as therapeutic agents are transforming modern medicine. An emerging focus is tumour-colonizing bacteria, where systemically delivered bacteria have been demonstrated to selectively grow within solid tumours. This natural tropism to tumours presents a unique opportunity to engineer bacteria as programmable drug delivery vehicles to regions inaccessible with existing chemo- and immuno-therapeutics. In this talk, I will describe our recent efforts to enhance bacterial cancer therapies through synthetic biology. I will focus on strategies to address several key challenges for clinical translation, including bacterial delivery, therapeutic identification, and off-target effects. Our multidisciplinary approach, spanning from gene circuit design to in vitro and in vivo models, advances bacteria as next-generation drug carriers capable of sensing and responding to diseases within the body.
Bio: Tetsuhiro received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Columbia University in 2022. His graduate work in Dr. Tal Danino’s lab focused on the engineering of living microbes as advanced drug delivery vehicles, with a specific focus on tumour-homing bacteria as cancer therapeutics. Currently, Tetsuhiro is an NCI F99/K00 postdoctoral fellow in the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. Working with Dr. David Mooney, Tetsuhiro is developing engineered living materials as next-generation drug delivery systems. Tetsuhiro was named as one of STAT’s Wunderkinds and recognized in MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 in 2023.