Lim to lead new systems and synthetic biology center
SynBERC Deputy Director Wendell Lim and cell biologists at UCSF have received $15.4 million from the National Institutes of Health to set up one of two new National Centers for Systems Biology, to study how cells respond to their environment – an emerging field of research that could revolutionize medicine by creating “smart cells” to deliver medications and other therapeutics more effectively.
The center will apply forward engineering approaches, as well as comparative genomics, to understand the fundamental design principles of adaptation. It will ask not how any one particular system works, but rather, which core network structures are required to achieve adaptation and which synthetic adaptation circuits can be developed.
“This engineering-inspired approach has the potential to transform medicine,” Lim said. “The fundamental understanding of circuit structure and function that emerges will allow us to recognize core circuit architectures in natural systems, how these are perturbed in disease states, and how they can be engineered to carry out therapeutic or biotechnologically useful target functions.”
UCSF Center for Systems & Synthetic Biology website
