Living cells are endowed with encoded programs that allow them to execute vital tasks and respond to relevant stimuli. The use of analogous (synthetic) programs has an enormous potential, yet we are highly limited in our ability to program cellular actions over time. We rely on precisely-timed human intervention or on molecular oscillators that control repetitive processes, but we are still unable to program cells to autonomously execute custom actions at desired times.
We intend to make a big leap toward this goal by producing control systems (molecular timers) and associated, ready-to-use applications, for the precise and self-sufficient control of cellular actions over time. Specifically, we will engineer timer gene circuits into E. coli that compute time and perform desired actions at specified moments. Timers will be highly programmable, re-usable, and scalable, and I will exploit their potential by using them for different applications, including bioproduction and biosensing.
The skin is the largest organ of the human body and is broadly populated by bacteria, viruses and fungi that contribute to colonization resistance and immune education. The skin microbiome holds great promise as a miniaturized Trojan Horse to deploy new functionalities in the host due to very favourable characteristics, which include: an accessible location but yet a tight contact with the host, a low immunogenicity, an easier genetic modification, and a low turnover that ensures a prolonged (yet reversible) action, among others.
We aim at developing molecular tools that allow us to control and program the most abundant human skin bacterium, Cutibacterium acnes. We will use these tools to generate engineered C. acnes strains with enhanced capabilities, such as disease diagnosis or therepeutic molecule production.
