SEMINAR:Synthetic Biology: Rosetta Stone of Engineering Biology

Guest: Urartu Özgür Şafak Şeker, Bilkent University

Title: Synthetic Biology: Rosetta Stone of Engineering Biology (BIO, MAT)

Date/Time: December 2, 2024, 13:40

Location: FASS G022

Abstract: Cellular therapies using engineered cells are triggering a paradigm shift in the development of biopharmaceuticals. Instead of using simply a single protein (e.g. antibody, human proteins etc), microbial therapeutics enables us to design biological machines with multifunctional properties. Microbial therapeutics are mainly designed as three modules, including: sensing- targeting and delivery. 

In our laboratory we have been developing microbial therapeutics for various diseases including Type1 diabetes, breast/column cancer, anemia and rare metabolic diseases. We have established various cellular protein secretion systems for the delivery of the biotechnological drugs. In addition to logic gated cell surface systems, recently we have developed a complex genetic circuitry to control the permeability/leakiness of the cell membrane in a probiotic bacterium E. coli Nissle 1917 for payload delivery of protein drugs. I will give an overview of our recent research efforts focused but not limited only with living drugs. 

Bio: Urartu Özgür Şafak Şeker completed his undergraduate studies in Food Engineering at Hacettepe University in 2001 and earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Istanbul Technical University in 2009. His doctoral research, conducted between 2004 and 2008, was carried out at the University of Washington's Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He pursued postdoctoral research in the Department of Applied Physics at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, from 2010 to 2011, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) between 2011 and 2014, where he was affiliated with the MIT Synthetic Biology Center, the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE), and the Department of Biological Engineering. Since May 2014, he has been a professor at Bilkent University's Institute of Materials Science and Nanotechnology, Life Sciences Section. His research focuses on synthetic biology and its biomedical applications. He has received several prestigious awards, including the TÜBA Distinguished Young Scientist Award (TÜBA-GEBİP) in Bioengineering, as well as recognition from the Turkish Institute of Health, the Science Academy, the METU Parlar Foundation, and FABED.