ArtScience @ Le Lab Lecture Series: Art, Design, Engineering & Biology

sci2

A few weeks ago we recorded a conversation with George Church, a Harvard University geneticist and one of the founders of modern genomics. In the resulting podcast, you'll hear Church offer his thoughts on the coming transformation of medicine, whether genes should be patentable, and whether the public is prepared to deal with genetic data.

Here's how Church characterizes the state of genomics:

"It's kind of like '93 on the Web. In fact, in a certain sense, it's more sophisticated than electronics because we have inherited three billion years of amazing technology that was just like a spaceship that was parked in our back yard and we're just reverse-engineering and probably not fully utilizing even the stuff that we've discovered so far."

For more about this episode and links related to the things we discussed, visit http://radar.oreilly.com/2013/07/podcast-george-church-genomics-spaceship-parked-in-our-back-yard.html

[Thumbnail image courtesy Harvard University Center for the Environment]

More on this episode

George Church on genomics: "Like a spaceship that was parked in our back yard"

Dr. “George Church is one of the most brilliant scientists in the world,” says Steven Pinker on the front cover of Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves.

Regenesis is the recent book that Church wrote together with Ed Regis, where the authors “imagine a future in which human beings have become immune to all viruses, in which bacteria can custom-produce everyday items, like a drinking cup, or generate enough electricity or biofuel to end oil dependency. Building a house would entail no more work than planting a seed in the ground…”

These are just few low-hanging fruits that the tree of synthetic biology may provide for us. So why is it that some scared pundits are calling it “the most dangerous idea”?!…

During my Singularity 1 on 1 interview with George Church we discuss the above plus a variety of other topics such as: how he got interested in genetics and why he considers himself more of a technologist and inter-disciplinarian; the synthetic biology revolution of the past few years (beating Moore’s Law by a factor of 6); his views on religion; his dyslexia, high cholesterol and other mutations; 23andMe and DNA testing in general; the difference between genetics and synthetic biology; transhumanism, faith, mirror organisms and mirror humans; intellectual property rights and patenting living organisms; genomics and longevity…

My two favorite quotes from Dr. Church are:

“Inactivity and complacency are the most dangerous ideas… and assuming things will be fine if we do nothing.”

“We should not assume things will stay the way they are. Or that inactivity is the right path.”

George Church: Inactivity and Complacency Are The Most Dangerous Ideas

How can a materials science approach lead to medical breakthroughs?

In this episode of Disruptive, Wyss Core Faculty Member Dave Mooney discusses programmable nanomaterials approaches to fighting disease. Mooney explains how a cancer vaccine, developed by his team and currently in a clinical trial at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, can train one’s own immune system to target specific cancer cells. He also describes the development of novel hydrogels that find application in drug delivery systems and tissue regeneration. Chris Gemmiti, a member of the Wyss Institute’s Business Development team, joins the conversation to discuss the Wyss process of translation and what is involved in bringing the hydrogel drug delivery technology from bench-to-bedside.

Disruptive: Cancer Vaccine & Hydrogel Drug Delivery

George Church
Responsibility, art & science of intentional extinction, de-extinction & aging
Wednesday, Feb 17, 2016

ArtScience @ Le Lab Lecture Series: Art, Design, Engineering & Biology – Core Faculty from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University discuss how the arts and design are informing the frontiers of science.

ArtScience @ Le Lab is a free, biweekly evening seminar series organized for the general public in the magical "Honeycomb" of Le Lab Cambridge and Café ArtScience. Artists, designers, scientists, chefs, engineers, perfumers -- and more -- talk about creativity and culture at the edges of art, science and design. For more information, please visit http://www.lelaboratoirecambridge.com or http://wyss.harvard.edu.

George Church: Responsibility, art & science of intentional extinction, de-extinction & aging

Biofilms are commonly known as the slime-producing bacterial communities sitting on stones in streams, dirty pipes and drains, or dental plaque. However, Wyss Core Faculty member Neel Joshi is putting to work the very properties that make biofilms effective nuisances or threats in our daily lives. In this episode of Disruptive, Joshi and postdoctoral fellow Anna Duraj-Thatte discuss the development of a novel protein engineering system called BIND, Biofilm-Integrated Nanofiber Display, which uses biofilms to help clean up polluted rivers, manufacture pharmaceutical products, and fabricate new textiles.

Disruptive: Putting Biofilms to Work

February 15, 2017

Listen to Wyss Core Faculty member William Shih’s lecture on how custom molecular shapes can be designed using DNA building blocks and how these minuscule devices could have a profound impact on fields ranging from molecular biophysics to therapeutics to nano-optics for decades to come. Shih’s lecture is part of the ArtScience lecture series at Le Laboratoire in Cambridge, MA.

ArtScience @ Le Lab is a free, biweekly evening seminar series organized for the general public in the magical “Honeycomb” of Le Laboratoire Cambridge and Café ArtScience. Artists, designers, scientists, chefs, engineers, perfumers — and more — talk about creativity and culture at the edges of art, science and design. For more information, please visit http://www.lelaboratoirecambridge.com or http://wyss.harvard.edu/events.

William Shih: Lego-Style Construction of Future Therapeutics From DNA

Wyss Core Faculty member David Mooney presents a talk with Mary Mooney, titled Seeing Is Believing: Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines. Marshalling a patient’s immune system to recognize and destroy cancerous cells is an exciting strategy to attack cancer, and this talk will explore materials that engage the immune system through science and artistic representation.
 
Mary K. Mooney is a Massachusetts artist who spent many years working as a designer in the apparel industry. Now the Massachusetts landscape provides Mary with the inspiration for her Plein Air paintings. With the Boston area so rich in natural beauty and history, Mary finds peace being one with nature as she paints. Learning the history behind each scene has always been an important aspect in choosing a location. Classically trained in the traditional style of the French Atelier realist painters, the science of light and how it affects color plays an important role in her paintings. These techniques inform her more realistic Still life paintings that contrast the looser style of her landscape paintings. In recent years Mary has also been creating mixed media sculptures using found objects and repurposing these object to give them new life. In an age of recycling, Mary finds it satisfying to utilize an interesting object found on the street. Mary has a BFA in Fine Arts and Design from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
​
David Mooney is the Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering in the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and a Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute. His laboratory designs biomaterials to make cell and protein therapies effective and practical approaches to treat disease. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Inventors. He has won numerous awards, including the Clemson Award from the SFB, MERIT award from the NIH, Distinguished Scientist Award from the IADR, Phi Beta Kappa Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award from Harvard College. His inventions have been licensed by numerous companies, leading to commercialized products, and he is active on industrial scientific advisory boards.

David and Mary Mooney: Seeing Is Believing- Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines - AUDIO ONLY

On The Digital Life podcast this week, we chat about the Human Genome Project Write. Synthetic biologists are building the engineering blueprint for life: a human cell that contains all the DNA it needs to produce more human cells. Such a blueprint could be a significant step towards major medical breakthroughs, including wiping out genetic diseases. 

Synthetic biologists build DNA using specialized bio-informatics design software to write the code. In the lab, this DNA code is then chemically synthesized. The software tools for this process, however, are still at their formative stages, and lack the necessary abstraction layer. Synthetic biologists must still work at the most basic level of DNA code—the A,C,G, and Ts—unlike, say computer coders who usually stay several layers above the 0s and 1s. 

Some of the other challenges this project will face include creating a legal framework and policy to govern the technology, establishing rules around intellectual property, and even coming to a shared understanding of ethical boundaries and prohibitions across the genomic research community. Join us as we discuss.

The Digital Life

Subscribe on iTunes

The Human Genome Project Write

The Wyss Institute uses Nature's design principles to develop bioinspired technologies that will revolutionize medicine and create a more sustainable world.