For our November seminar, we will be joined by Natalio Krasnogor, Professor of Computing Science and Synthetic Biology at Newcastle University.

Seminar title
Engineering biology needs its own Bill of Materials

Abstract
“Full-stack” biotechnology platforms for cell line (re)programming are on the horizon, thanks mostly to (a) advances in gene synthesis and editing techniques as well as (b) the growing integration of life science research with informatics, the internet of things and automation. These emerging platforms will accelerate the production and consumption of biological products. Hence, traceability, transparency, and—ultimately—trustworthiness are required from cradle to grave for engineered cell lines and their products as well as for the engineering processes that manufacture new strains. In this talk, Krasnogor will summarise recent success in introducing a biological version control system (called “CellRepo”) for cell engineering and will propose extensions of this work that would contribute to the creation of a Bill of Materials for engineering biology. An Engineering Biology Bill Of Materials would help buttress the management of provenance, pedigree and integrity of engineered cell lines in a rapidly growing bioeconomy.

Speaker
Natalio Krasnogor is Director of Newcastle’s Interdisciplinary Computing and Complex BioSystems (ICOS) research group and of the Centre for Synthetic Biology and the Bioeconomy. Krasnogor holds a prestigious 10 years Chair in Emerging Technologies award from the UK Royal Academy of Science and previously held an EPSRC Leadership Fellowship in Synthetic Biology. Krasnogor is also leading the AI work of the Horizon 2020 “DESTINATION: AI-enabled RNA nanotechnology delivery system for information transfer into cells” project. More generally, Krasnogor works at the interface of Synthetic Biology, DNA/RNA nanotechnology and machine intelligence. He is also interested in the simulation and modeling of complex networks in biological systems.