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SUMMARY:Model-guided sequence design for mRNA and gene therapy application
 s
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260626T150000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260626T160000
DTSTAMP:20260614T180700Z
UID:8be0e299-6219-f111-8342-7c1e522d9057
CREATED:20260306T140419Z
DESCRIPTION:Predicting the impact of cis-regulatory sequence on gene expre
 ssion is a foundational challenge for biology. In this talk\, I will prese
 nt our work on building models that predict molecular phenotypes (e.g. tra
 nscription\, translation\, stability) from gene sequence. Computational mo
 dels are often trained on massively parallel measurements of synthetic rep
 orter gene activity or on genomic datasets such as genome-wide DNA accessi
 bility. Crucially\, such sequence-function models can generalize from trai
 ning data to unseen sequences by learning the regulatory rules underlying 
 the observed molecular phenotype. When combined with sequence design algor
 ithms\, models can be used to generate functional cis-regulatory sequences
 . We apply this approach to design enhancers that result in cell type spec
 ific gene expression\, and mRNA UTR sequences that result in high levels o
 f translation or stability and that can find applications in mRNA and gene
  therapy.\n\n\nShort bio:\nGeorg Seelig is a the Chris and Heidi Stolte Pr
 ofessor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering and the Pau
 l G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of W
 ashington in Seattle. He is also a group leader at the Botnar Institute of
  Immune Engineering in Basel. The Seelig group is interested in understand
 ing how biological organisms process information using complex biochemical
  networks and how such networks can be engineered to program cellular beha
 vior. Seelig holds a PhD in physics from the University of Geneva in Switz
 erland and did postdoctoral work in synthetic biology and DNA nanotechnolo
 gy at Caltech. He received a Burroughs Wellcome Foundation Career Award at
  the Scientific Interface\, an NSF Career Award\, a Sloan Research Fellows
 hip\, a DARPA Young Faculty Award\, an ONR Young Investigator Award and a 
 Rozenberg Tulip Award in DNA computing among others.
LAST-MODIFIED:20260415T152653Z
LOCATION:IMS-Tetsuya Nakamura Building - IDRM Seminar Rooms 1&2 or via Tea
 ms link\, IDRM Seminar Rooms 1&2 or via Teams link IMS-Tetsuya Nakamura Bu
 ilding Roosevelt Dr\, Headington Oxford Oxfordshire OX3 7TY United Kingdom
SPEAKER:Professor Georg Seelig
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