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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Alexander Xu, Ph.D.*
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Institute for Systems Biology
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Whitaker Building, 3115
Videoconference:
Emory: Health and Sciences Research Building, E160
Georgia Tech: TEP, stream from your PC (no conf. room)
https://bluejeans.com/809850842
“Pliable Bio: Nanointerfaces to Read and Write Biological Networks”
ABSTRACT
Biology is animated by networks of proteins, transcripts, and more, but the arrangements of this network that give each single cell a distinct identity and function are a mystery. Bulk methods are oblivious to this level of detail, so the development of new tools to control biology at the level of single cells is critical to addressing cell heterogeneity in biology, especially in complex diseases like cancer. I will be presenting techniques that operate at the subcellular- and nano-scale to perform operations – measurements and manipulations – within single cells. First, I will describe how a field of vertical nanowires can be used to provide long term, actuatable interfaces to directly access and manipulate the cell interior. Second, I will introduce a device capable of parsing and measuring multiple streams of information – proteomics and transcriptomics – from within the same single cells. I will close by describing the synergy between subcellular measurement and manipulation for the future of single cell analysis.
BIOGRAPHY
Alex Xu is an F32 Postdoctoral Fellow with Prof. James Heath at the Institute of Systems Biology, moved recently from Caltech. He obtained his Materials Science PhD in 2015 from Stanford. His prior research spanned nanotechnology, microfabrication, bioengineering, and single cell analysis, and his current interests include bioinformatics, immunology, cancer biology, and cobbling his meandering research history together into new methods for single cell analysis. He enjoys playing the viola in community orchestras, sports, and crossword puzzles.
Host: James Dahlman
