Harnessing Evolution to Solve Problems in Biotech and Therapeutics

Biological evolution has solved many challenging molecular problems with breathtaking effectiveness. Researchers have begun to harness the remarkable power of evolution to address problems of their own choosing, rather than of nature’s choosing. In this lecture, Liu will describe the development and first applications of phage­assisted continuous evolution (PACE), a method that enables proteins to evolve continuously in the laboratory for the first time, accelerating the speed of laboratory evolution ~100­fold. The Liu group has used PACE to rapidly evolve a wide variety of proteins with the potential to serve as novel therapeutic agents, as well as to study the reproducibility and path dependence of evolution over thousands of generations in a practical time frame. Liu will also describe a recent effort to use PACE to address a major problem facing worldwide agricultural productivity: the rise of insects resistant to a widely used protein insecticide.

Who it’s for: life-long Learners, curiosity seekers, science lovers

Vibe: informative, forward-thinking, collaborative

Host:

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Speaker:

David Liu, PhD, Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, and Associate Faculty member, Wyss Institute at Harvard University