Bottom-up Synthetic Biology and a Foray into Phase Separation

Abstract

Cells are made up of compartments that are delimited by membranes or by protein- and/or nucleic acid-rich liquid phases. Significant amount of work has elucidated the molecular machineries that regulate dynamic membrane-based processes and there is growing appreciation of membrane-less organelles in cell biology. In parallel, there are growing interests in recent years in trying to understand how mechanical state of the cells are utilized as a regulatory input to control cellular processes. My lab is broadly interested in studying the mechanochemical responses of biological membrane. In particular, as part of our bottom-up synthetic biology effort, we are building artificial cells that can sense mechanical input and transduce a biochemical response. To this end, we are attempting to build artificial platelets that mimic the functionalities of natural platelets. I will discuss several modular platforms that we have developed that together will integrate into functional artificial cells. In the second part of my talk, I will discuss the potential for using liquid-liquid phase separation as a paradigm for spatially organizing reactions within artificial cells. I will describe some recent work on characterizing diffusion of small molecules within and outside of phase-separated coacervate droplets. Our growing capability to compartmentalize biology within membrane or membraneless compartments will enable us to build increasingly complex cell-like systems.

Biography Allen Liu received a B.Sc. degree in Biochemistry (Honors) from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, in 2001. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biophysics in 2007 from the University of California-Berkeley and received his post-doctoral training at The Scripps Research Institute-La Jolla. He started his group in 2012, and he is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan. His current research interests lie in cellular mechanotransduction and uses tools from systems biology, synthetic biology, biophysics, and microfluidics. He is a recipient of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, a Young Innovator by Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering (CMBE), a Rising Star from CMBE-BMES, and Future of Biophysics Burroughs Wellcome Fund Symposium speaker. He is a recipient of the Endeavour Executive Fellowship (Australia) and the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researcher (Germany).