Event
CHBE Seminar: Dr. Dingchang Lin, JHU
Friday, November 22, 2024
11:00 a.m.
Room 2108 Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Building
Patricia Lorenzana
301-405-1935
plorenza@umd.edu
Intracellular Protein Assemblies: Emerging Materials for Life Sciences
Abstract: Protein assemblies have gained broad applications in the fields of energy, environment, and biomedicine. Recently, protein assemblies within live cells have garnered increasing attention as a new class of biomaterials. In this talk, I will first share our efforts in the design and synthesis of intracellular protein assemblies. I will elaborate on our strategies for their programmable synthesis, focusing on their structural and compositional complexity. Second, I will illustrate the application of protein assemblies in life sciences by introducing our recent pioneering work on an intracellular recording platform. This platform leverages protein assemblies as genetically encodable memory devices to record the histories of individual cells as fluorescent signals within the cytoplasm. This information can be retrospectively retrieved in high throughput via imaging. Our strategy provides a feasible path toward organ-wide longitudinal mapping at the single-cell level.
Bio: Dr. Dingchang Lin is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of the Department of Materials Science & Engineering and of the Institute for NanoBiotechnology at Johns Hopkins University. His research focuses on developing tools for the mapping and modulation of biological systems, especially the central nervous system. In particular, he is interested in developing devices and molecules that can seamlessly interface with the living systems, adapt and respond to internal physiological changes and external physical stimuli, and thus enable cell targeting with (sub)cellular-level resolution, multiplexity, and cell-type specificity. He obtained his B.S. from Tsinghua University in 2013 and Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2018. He then did his postdoctoral training in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University (2018-2022, with Drs. Charles M. Lieber and Adam E. Cohen). Dr. Lin has been a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher (cross-field) since 2019. He and his team have received several awards including the NIH NIGMS MIRA (R35) Award (2022), DoD, AFOSR YIP Award (2022), Harvard Brain Institute Young Scientist Transitions Award (2021), MRS Graduate Student Award (2018), and Ross N. Tucker Memorial Award (2017).
