Dr. Pulin Li

Assistant Professor of Biology, MIT; Member, Whitehead Institute

Li Lab

Seminar Title: Understanding Biological Patterning from the Bottom Up

Seminar Date/Time: Sunday October 13, 2019 /  2:00 - 2:30 PM

Bio: 

Pulin Li has joined the Department of Biology as an Assistant Professor and a member of the Whitehead Institute in the summer of 2019. She completed a PhD in Chemical Biology from Harvard University. She focused on discovering novel signaling pathways that regulate hematopoietic stem cells during embryo development and adult transplantation.  She then completed post doctoral work in the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering at California Institute of Technology, studying how cell-cell communication circuits coordinate multicellular behaviors to pattern tissues. To study this central question in developmental biology, she developed a bottom-up approach by genetically engineering communication circuits in individual cells and then reconstituting multicellular behaviors in a petri dish. This cell-based reconstitution approach, together with quantitative measurements and mathematical modeling, provides a new methodology for studying developmental and evolutionary questions. It could also offer a quantitative framework and molecular tools for tissue engineering.

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Dr. Xiao Wang

Assistant Professor of Chemistry, MIT; Core Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Wang Lab

Seminar Title: Spatially resolved cell typing in the brain

Seminar Date/Time: Sunday October 13, 2019 /   5:00 - 5:30 PM

Bio:

Xiao Wang is a core institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at MIT. At Broad, she creates and applies new chemical, biophysical and genomic tools to better understand brain function and dysfunction at the molecular level. Xiao received her B.S. in chemistry and molecular engineering from Peking University in 2010. She received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Chicago in 2015 where she elucidated the cellular functions of RNA modifications with Prof. Chuan He. She then conducted postdoctoral research with Prof. Karl Deisseroth, where she was a fellow of Life Science Research Foundation and developed in situ RNA sequencing methods to map the spatial organization of cell types in the mouse brain.

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Dr. Hagen Tilgner

Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at the Brain and Mind Research Institute (BMRI), Weill Cornell Medicine

Tilgner Lab

Seminar Title: Getting the entire message: Full-length isoforms in cell lines and thousands of single cells of complex tissue

Seminar Date/Time: Sunday October 13, 2019 /   5:30 - 6:00 PM

Bio: 

Dr. Tilgner is an Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at the Brain and Mind Research Institute (BMRI) of Weill Cornell Medicine as of 2016. He obtained his M.Sc. degrees from Germany (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) and from France (Ecole Nationale d’Informatique et des Mathematiques Appliquees de Grenoble – ENSIMAG and Universite Joseph Fourier) in Computer Science and Bioinformatics. After an internship at the Sanger Institute (Cambridge, UK), he carried out his PhD research under the supervision of Professor Roderic Guigo at the Center for Genomic Research (CRG) in Barcelona, Spain, focusing on the mechanism and dynamics of RNA splicing.  In 2011, he moved to the Genetics Department of Stanford University to the laboratory of Professor Michael Snyder, where he focused on developing various techniques for full-length RNA isoform profiling. His main interest is understanding how different isoforms (“what genes are saying”) expand on simple gene expression measurements (“how much genes are talking”) in specifying cellular function in single cells of the nervous system and disease. 

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Dr. Kevin Esvelt

Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT;  NEC Career Development Professor of Computer and Communications

Esvelt Lab

Seminar Title: Understanding evolution and preventing catastrophe

Seminar Date/Time: Monday October 14, 2019 /  9:15 - 9:45 AM

Bio: 

Kevin M. Esvelt is an assistant professor of the MIT Media Lab, where he leads the Sculpting Evolution Group in exploring evolutionary and ecological engineering.

He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University for inventing a synthetic microbial ecosystem to rapidly evolve useful biomolecules, and subsequently helped pioneer the development of CRISPR, a powerful new method of genome engineering.

In 2013, Esvelt was the first to identify the potential for CRISPR “gene drive” systems to alter wild populations of organisms. Recognizing the implications of an advance that could enable individual scientists to alter the shared environment, he and his colleagues chose to break with scientific tradition by revealing their findings and calling for open discussion and safeguards before they demonstrated the technology in the laboratory.

At MIT, the Sculpting Evolution Group develops safer “daisy drives” that only spread locally, as well as ways of restoring populations to their original genetics. Together with the communities of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, they are advancing the “Mice Against Ticks” project aiming to prevent tick-borne disease. Other research interests include unraveling the workings of molecular evolution and reducing animal suffering. An outspoken advocate of freely sharing research plans to accelerate discovery and improve safety, Kevin seeks to use gene drive as a catalyst to reform the scientific ecosystem.

His work is frequently published in top scientific journals, including Nature and Science, and covered in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, PBS NOVA, and NPR.

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Dr. Lauren C. Foster

Associate Director of the Technology Licensing Office, MIT; Director of IP and Strategic Alliances at Koch Institute Medicine, Cell Biology, Biotechnology, Diagnostics

Seminar Date/TIme: Monday October 14, 2019 /  9:45 - 10:45 AM

Bio: 

Lauren C. Foster is the Associate Director of M.I.T.'s Technology Licensing Office (TLO), focusing principally on licensing and commercialization of technologies in the biomedical, biotechnology and medical device fields. She also serves as Director of Intellectual Property and Strategic Alliances at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at M.I.T. where she is involved in the strategic management of the Koch Institute’s industrial partnerships and intellectual property portfolio.  Prior to joining M.I.T., Lauren was Senior Director, IP and Technology Acquisition at Antigenics, Inc., a public biotechnology company, where she played an integral role in envisioning and implementing the company’s business, intellectual property and technology strategies.  Lauren was also a Technical Specialist at the law firm Lahive & Cockfield LLP where she focused on strategic development of intellectual property rights for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and universities.  Ms. Foster holds a D.Sc. from Harvard University and a B.S. from Haverford College, and is a registered Patent Agent.

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