Prof. Rajeev Ram
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
January 12, 2015 | 03:00 to 04:00 | 521 Cory Hall
Host: Ming Wu
The presentation will explore microfluidics and microphotonics as tools for the rapid development of therapeutic proteins. Recent work on microfluidic devices for closed-loop control of the metabolic state of a productive cell line (both microbial and mammalian) will be presented. We demonstrate that the control afforded by the combination of microfluidics and photonics allows for rapid, high fidelity activation of synthetic gene circuits. Completing the control loop for therapeutic proteins requires rapid analytics for the protein products. Recent literature developing various nano-assays for real-time protein characterization will be reviewed, as well as work in our group using Raman spectroscopy to identify and characterize therapeutic proteins. The resulting platform has the potential to aid in the optimization of existing biomanufacturing processes, to explore fundamental interactions between gene circuits and metabolic load, and even to provide 'on-demand' manufacturing of biotherapeutic drugs.
www.rle.mit.edu/people/directory/rajeev-ram(link is external)
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