Yan Zhang, PhD
Postdoctoral fellow, California Institute of Technology
Date: Thursday, Jan. 22
Time: 9–9:50 a.m.
Location: Biodesign B, B105-A
Faculty host: Xiaojun Tian
Abstract
The current centralized model for developing and delivering biotechnology is increasingly at odds with the rising demands for personalized medicine and customized biochemicals. As a result, I envision the future of biotechnology to be on-demand: from the moment a need is identified, the biological solution can be designed, synthesized and deployed at the point of need. Cell-free gene expression systems, which execute gene expression reactions outside living cells, are an enabling platform supporting this transition. However, realizing this future requires overcoming existing challenges in point-of-need deployment and ensuring predictable, reliable gene expression in these systems.
In this seminar, I will present a pathway toward on-demand biotechnology that builds on my work in developing point-of-need biosensor diagnostics and systematically characterizing a minimal cell-free gene expression system, the One-Pot PURE system. I will first describe strategies for engineering quantitative biosensors that function in complex human serum matrices while meeting practical, point-of-need constraints. Then, I will show how the proteome and biochemical environment of cell-free systems govern the reliability of gene expression, and how systematic characterization of these factors enables predictive gene expression. Collectively, these findings establish a framework for co-designing gene expression platforms and genetic programs to achieve consistent outcomes, supporting on-demand access to custom biological solutions for healthcare and environmental applications.
Biosketch
Yan Zhang is an NIH MOSAIC K99/R00 postdoctoral fellow and a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology, working in the laboratories of Professor Bil Clemons and Professor Richard Murray. Her research focuses on designing cell-free gene expression systems that enable predictable execution of biological programs, ranging from single proteins to bacteriophage genomes. Zhang received her PhD in chemical and biomolecular engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she developed cell-free biosensors for point-of-care diagnostics and received the Best PhD Thesis Award from the Georgia Tech Chapter of Sigma Xi. Her work has been recognized through programs such as the American Chemical Society’s CAS Future Leaders Program and MIT’s Rising Stars in Chemical Engineering. She holds a BS in chemical and biomolecular engineering from Cornell University.
