Cellular Innovation by Rational Design and Evolution
Living cells use circuits of interacting molecules to process signals, remember information, and interact in complex ways with their environments. Our laboratory is interested in creating artificial cellular systems that exceed the design and functional repertoire of nature. Through building these synthetic systems de novo, we are uncovering the design principles of natural cellular circuits and how they carry out specific biological functions. To address the most pressing human diseases, we also use these systems to program useful cellular behaviors in a broader quest to develop next-generation cellular therapeutics.
Our unique approach is to develop, and then creatively integrate, advanced forms of rational design and laboratory evolution to address problems at different levels of cellular organization. First, we develop synthetic biology frameworks to engineer and study the molecular circuits that control gene regulation in eukaryotes. We have made fundamental discoveries involving transcription circuits and epigenetic regulatory systems, and translated these discoveries into platforms for programming therapeutic human cells for personalized medicine. Second, we deepen and expand the functional repertoire of synthetic networks by creating new biomolecule components through advanced continuous evolution methods. To this end, we invented an open-source, automated continuous culture platform called eVOLVER that enables hundreds of microbial populations to be propagated in individually-controlled conditions over long time-scales. We are deploying eVOLVER to enable fundamental eco-evolutionary studies of cellular systems, and to evolve proteins with new and biomedically-useful functions at unprecedented scale.
Unlocking the Magic in Mycelium: Using Synthetic Biology to Optimize Filamentous Fungi for Biomanufacturing and Sustainability
Charles Jo, Jing Zhang, Jenny M. Tam, George M. Church, Ahmad S. Khalil, Daniel Segrè and Tzu-Chieh Tang
Materials Today Bio, 19: 100560 (2023)
Multidimensional Control of Therapeutic Human Cell Function with Synthetic Gene Circuits
Hui-Shan Li*, Divya V. Israni*, Keith A. Gagnon, Kok Ann Gan, Michael H. Raymond, Jeffry D. Sander, Kole T. Roybal, J. Keith Joung, Wilson W. Wong and Ahmad S. Khalil
Science, 378: 1227-1234 (2022)
A Toolkit for Precise, Multi-Gene Control in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Adam Sanford, Szilvia Kiriakov and Ahmad S. Khalil
ACS Synthetic Biology, 11: 3912-3920 (2022)
Recent Progress of Gene Circuit Designs in Immune Cell Therapies
Seunghee Lee, Ahmad S. Khalil† and Wilson W. Wong†
Cell Systems, 13: 864-873 (2022)
High-Throughput Continuous Evolution of Compact Cas9 Variants Targeting Single-Nucleotide-Pyrimidine PAMs
Tony P. Huang*, Zachary J. Heins*, Shannon M. Miller, Brandon G. Wong, Pallavi A. Balivada, Tina Wang, Ahmad S. Khalil† and David R. Liu†
Nature Biotechnology, doi: 10.1038/s41587-022-01410-2 (2022)
High-Performance Multiplex Drug-Gated CAR Circuits
Hui-Shan Li*, Nicole M. Wong*, Elliot Tague, John T. Ngo, Ahmad S. Khalil and Wilson W. Wong
Cancer Cell, 40: 1-12 (2022)
Cooperative Assembly Confers Regulatory Specificity and Long-Term Genetic Circuit Stability
Meghan D. J. Bragdon*, Nikit Patel*, James Chuang, Ethan Levien, Caleb J. Bashor* and Ahmad S. Khalil*
bioRxiv, doi: 10.1101/2022.05.22.492993
In Vivo Hypermutation and Continuous Evolution
Rosana S. Molina, Gordon Rix, Amanuella A. Mengiste, Beatriz Alvarez, Daeje Seo, Haiqi Chen, Juan E. Hurtado, Qiong Zhang, Jorge Donato Garcia-Garcia, Zachary J. Heins, Patrick J. Almhjell, Frances H. Arnold, Ahmad S. Khalil, Andrew D. Hanson, John E. Dueber, David V. Schaffer, Fei Chen, Seokhee Kim, Luis Angel Fernandez, Matthew D. Shoulders, and Chang C. Liu
Nature Reviews Methods Primer, 2: 36 (2022)
Modular Design of Synthetic Receptors for Programmed Gene Regulation in Cell Therapies
Iowis Zhu, Raymond Liu, Julie M. Garcia, Axel Hyrenius-Wittsten, Dan I. Piraner, Josef Alavi, Divya V. Israni, Bin Liu, Ahmad S. Khalil and Kole T. Roybal
Cell, 185: 1431-1443 (2022)
