Cross-Species Translation of Biological Information via Computational Systems Modeling Frameworks
email: mcolomb4@jhu.edu for link
Jump to:
Bio
“Cross-Species Translation of Biological Information via Computational Systems Modeling Frameworks”
Douglas Lauffenburger is Ford Professor of Bioengineering in the Departments of Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Biology at MIT. He was the founding Head of the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT, and served in that capacity until 2019. He is also a member of the Center for Biomedical Engineering, Center for Gynepathology Research, and Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, as well as the Ragon Institute of MGH / MIT / Harvard.
Professor Lauffenburger’s BS and PhD degrees are in chemical engineering, from the University of Illinois (1975) and the University of Minnesota (1979) respectively. Previous to joining MIT in 1995, he held faculty positions at the University of Pennsylvania (1979-1990) and the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign (1991-1994). A central focus of the Lauffenburger research program is systems biology approaches to cell-cell communication and cell signaling important in pathophysiology, with emphasis on translational application to therapeutics discovery and development in cancer, pathogen infection, and inflammatory disease. Lauffenburger has co-authored the monograph Receptors: Models for Binding, Trafficking & Signaling (Oxford Press, 1993) and co-edited the book Systems Biomedicine: Concepts and Perspectives (Elsevier Press, 2010). More than 130 doctoral students and postdoctoral associates have undertaken research education under his supervision.
Professor Lauffenburger has served as a scientific advisor to numerous biotech/pharma companies and biomedical science foundations. Along with many honors and awards from professional societies, he is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and a fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science and the American Scientific Affiliation. Lauffenburger has served as President of the Biomedical Engineering Society, Chair of the College of Fellows of American Institute for Medical & Biological Engineering, on the Advisory Council for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and as a co-author of the 2009 National Research Council report A New Biology for the 21st Century
To join the live event please request the link by emailing: icm@jhu.edu
Abstract
“Cross-Species Translation of Biological Information via Computational Systems Modeling Frameworks”
A vital challenge that the vast majority of biological research must address is how to translate observations from one physiological context to another—most commonly from experimental animals (e.g., rodents, primates) or technological constructs (e.g., organ-on-chip platforms) to human subjects. This is typically required for understanding human biology because of the strong constraints on measurements and perturbations in human in vivo contexts. Direct translation of observations from experimental animals to human subjects is generally unsatisfactory because of significant differences among organisms at all levels of molecular properties from genome to transcriptome to proteome and so forth. Accordingly, addressing inter-species translation requires an integrated experimental/computational approach for mapping comparable but not identical molecule-to-phenotype relationships. This presentation will describe methods we have developed for a variety of cross-species translation examples, demonstrated on applications in inflammatory pathologies and cancer.
