Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology
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Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology
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The Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology (CSSB) brings together UT researchers across a range of disciplines to quantitatively understand and engineer the regulatory networks underlying organismal biology.
Our research interests include:
- Disease: Developing computer models to better understand a multitude of human diseases and crop traits.
- Drugs: Discovering drugs based on genetic modules shared between humans and organisms as distant as yeast.
- Developing diagnostics for resource-limited settings using smart molecular amplifiers.
- Immunity: Using cutting-edge genome sequence technology to map immune responses.
- Emerging viruses: Finding methods to predict the emergence of the next threats.
- Molecular computation: Developing programmable molecules that contribute to sensors, amplifiers, and organismal operating systems.
Research at the CSSB is focused on the integration of genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics data—offering a more unified view of organisms as integrated networks. Such systems-wide, interdisciplinary approaches allow us to better define the functions of genes, and to accelerate the discovery of new pathways that are critical for various traits and diseases.
Selected projects include: Diagnostics for Developing Markets. Discovering New Disease Genes, Pathways, and Drugs.
HIV/AIDS: An Ongoing Global Pandemic. Two of their contributions to this field are already being translated to public health:
- Development of a synthetic gene that protects against HIV, which is now under therapeutic development for the treatment of AIDS.
- Identification of new genes in the human genome that may help define disease progression. These genes are currently part of a large, ongoing HIV/AIDS association study being conducted using HIV/AIDS cohorts.
Emerging Disease: We are currently focusing on influenza, arenaviruses, and Dengue. We are interested in the host genes that make certain species and individuals more prone to infection by these and other viruses.
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Jeffrey E Barrick
Associate ProfessorLorene Morrow Kelley Professorship in MicrobiologyMicrobial experimental evolution and synthetic biologyBryan W Davies
Associate ProfessorWe investigate protein-based antibiotics and bacteria-host interactions.Lauren I Ehrlich
Associate Professor, Associate Professor of OncologyLorene Morrow Kelley Endowed Faculty Fellowship FundThymocyte: stromal cell interactions in T cell development and T-ALLAndrew Ellington
ProfessorNancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Regents Chair in Molecular Biology | Wilson M. and Kathryn Fraser Research Professorship in BiochemistryIlya J Finkelstein
Associate ProfessorLorene Morrow Kelley Endowed Faculty Fellowship FundDiscovery & Biophysical Studies of Molecular MachinesRyan S Gray
Assistant Professor, Assistant Professor of PediatricsWe study the development cell biology and genetics regulating spine development and disorders.Amelia W HallI am a 5th year graduate student in the Iyer lab. At present, I study epigenetic regulation in brain cancer.Jonghwan Kim
Associate ProfessorTranscriptional and epigenetic regulations in Pluripotent stem cells and trophoblast lineage developmentEdward M Marcotte
Professor, Affiliated Faculty, Oden InstituteMr. and Mrs. Corbin J. Robertson, Sr. Regents Chair in Molecular Biology #1Andreas Matouschek
Associate Dean, ProfessorMechanisms of protein machines, protein folding, unfolding, and degradation.David Soloveichik
Associate ProfessorDynamic DNA nanotechnology; chemical and unconventional computation.Christopher S Sullivan
ProfessorOur lab seeks to understand how viruses interact with the host non-coding RNA machineries to replicate, induce tumors, and cause pathogenesiDavid W Taylor Jr
Assistant ProfessorLorene Morrow Kelley Endowed Faculty Fellowship FundDirectly visualizing molecular machinesJohn B Wallingford
ProfessorMr. and Mrs. Robert P. Doherty, Jr. Regents Chair in Molecular BiologyWe combine in vivo imaging with systems biology to explore the cell biological basis of embryonic developmentClaus O Wilke
Department Chair, Integrative Biology, ProfessorJane and Roland Blumberg Centennial Professorship in Molecular Evolution | Dwight W. and Blanche Faye Reeder Centennial Fellowship in Systematic and Evolutionary BiologyDepartment Chair of Integrative Biology. Computational evolutionary biology, Molecular evolution, Virus evolution.