The UCLA Microbiome Center & the California NanoSystems Institute presents the UCLA Microbiome Center Lecture Series

Biomolecular Engineering for Noninvasive Imaging and Control of Cellular Function

Speaker: Mikhail G. Shapiro, PhD

Assistance Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering
California Institute of Technology

The study of biological function in intact organisms and the development of targeted cellular therapeutics necessitate methods to image and control cellular function in vivo. Technologies such as fluorescent proteins and optogenetics serve this purpose in small, translucent specimens, but are limited by the poor penetration of light into deeper tissues. In contrast, most non-invasive techniques such as ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) – while based on energy forms that penetrate tissue effectively – are not effectively coupled to cellular function. Our work attempts to bridge this gap by engineering biomolecules with the appropriate physical properties to interact with magnetic fields and sound waves. In this talk, I will describe our recent development of biomolecular reporters and actuators for ultrasound and MRI. One class of reporters is based on gas-filled protein nanostructures from buoyant photosynthetic microbes.