Collins Lab

In the press

• Nature Methods Research Highlights article on "Network countdown" August 2009 [1]
  

• Wall Street Journal article on "Programming cells to do the work" July 2009 [2]
  

• Jim Collins' Nature Journal Club article on "A bioengineer gets schooled by E. coli" July 2009 [3]
  

• Nature Biotechnology Research Highlights article on "Making cells count" July 2009 [4]
  

• Nature Chemical Biology Research Highlights article on "Easy as 1,2,3" July 2009 [5]
  

• Jim Collins on BBC's Americana July 2009 [6]
  

• Christian Science Monitor article on "Scientists turn living cells into clocks" June 2009 [7]
  

• Discovery Channel story on "Bacteria cells programmed to count" June 2009 [8]
  

• Science News article on "Engineeered DNA counts it out" May 2009 [9]
  

• New Scientist article on "Counting cells could trigger their own destruction" May 2009 [10]
  

• Wired Science article on "Cellular counter brings computer programming to life" May 2009 [11]
  

• Science Perspective article on "It's the DNA that counts" May 2009 [12]
  

• MIT news story on "Engineered circuits can count cellular events" May 2009 [13]
  

• Nature Reviews Genetic Research Highlights article on "Towards off-the-shelf networks" May 2009 [14]
  

• Nature Biotechnology News & Views article on "Overpowering the component problem" May 2009 [15]
  

• Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News article on "Practical applications of systems biology" May 2009 [16]
  


Resources

• Research
• References
• Suppliers
• Links

Technical

Our lab is focused on developing and using nonlinear dynamics approaches to study, mimic and improve the function of biological systems. We are currently working in three areas:

Systems Biology: We are developing and implementing computational-experimental methods to reverse engineer and analyze regulatory networks in microbes and higher organisms.

Synthetic Biology: We are modeling and building synthetic gene networks for a variety of biotechnology and biocomputing applications. We are also using engineered gene networks to study general principles underlying gene regulation.

Our lab is part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Center for BioDynamics, the Department of Biomedical Engineering, the Bioinformatics Program, the Center for Advanced Biotechnology, the Molecular Biology, Cell Biology & Biochemistry (MCBB) Program at Boston University, the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, the Frontiers in Integrative Biological Research Program, and the Center for Cancer Systems Biology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.