Samuel Oliveira

Research Assistant Professor (ECE)

Office CILSE Building, 610 Commonwealth, Room 621, Boston, MA 02215
Email smdo@bu.edu
Phone (857) 310-9593
Website Oliveira Lab

Areas of Interest

synthetic microbial communities
heavy metal monitoring
microfluidic-based high-throughput screening
multi-layer microfluidic integration
real-time live bacterial microscopy
single-cell image and data analysis
hardware and software automation

Research Areas

The microbiome is a community of microorganisms. Its quantity and variety depend on collective growth, communication, and external disturbances. Microbial community imbalances in soil microbiomes lead to the establishment of pollutants and competing organisms. When heavy metal pollution from phosphorus fertilizers and pesticides interacts with the soil-plant microbiome, it becomes toxic to plants, causing growth dysfunctions, lower agricultural yields, and severe economic losses. Synthetic communities with configurable functionalities can monitor and interface with such elements.

The discovery of novel species-agnostic communication mechanisms, the implementation of predictive models, and design principles and metrics that help build large multicellular communities enable the rational engineering of complex biosensors with predictive functions.

The Oliveira Lab examines microbial community complexity and interactions in many environmental situations to generate innovative collective behaviors. We expect computational and synthetic biology discoveries to speed our knowledge of genetic sequences and intercellular communication to investigate and engineer biological network activity. One objective is to create creative techniques to change microbiomes’ metabolic status after exposure to heavy metals.

Nonetheless, evaluating and integrating numerous cell types, processes, topologies, and circumstances necessitates unique experimental techniques from genetic engineering, microfluidic screening, single-cell microscopy, machine learning, computational modeling, and design optimization. In addition, the lab develops massively parallel microscopy, microfluidic screening, and dynamical modeling and control theory to examine these relationships.

Samuel Oliveira

Research Assistant Professor (ECE)

Publications