Henrike Niederholtmeyer, Jan 2017

Henrike Niederholtmeyer will visit Caltech on 23-24 January 2017 to help us out with some microfluidics work we are doing. If you would like to meet with her, please sign up below.

Schedule

23 Jan (Mon) Arrive sometime before noon 12 pm: Michaelle Mayalu seminar, 121 Annenberg (lunch) 1 pm: meet with Mark Prator and Reed McCardell 3 pm: TX-TL extract prep discussion: Miki, Yong, Sam 4 pm: Open 4:45 pm: Open 5:30 pm: Meet Richard in 107 Steele. Walk to dinner.

24 Jan (Tue) Morning: work with Mark and Reed 12 pm: Seminar in 121 Annenberg (abstract below) 1 pm: Lunch with Mark and Reed 2 pm: Open 2:45 pm: Richard 3:30 pm: Yong 4:15 pm: Open 5:00 pm: Done for the day

Seminar info

Gene expression in a synthetic tissue of artificial cells

Henrike Niederholtmeyer and Neal K. Devaraj
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego, USA

Tuesday, January 24, 2017
12:00 pm, 121 Annenberg

Living cells in tissues or biofilms communicate with neighboring cells through chemical and mechanical signals allowing them to organize spatially. To reduce the complexity of these natural systems we create synthetic tissues of non-living artificial cells. We use a microfluidic method to produce porous capsules with an artificial “nucleus” where DNA is immobilized. Upon addition of transcription and translation reagents capsules synthesize proteins, which localize to nuclei containing binding sites. Neighboring capsules communicate by producing transcription factors that diffuse through the artificial tissue suggesting that it can serve as a model system to study pattern formation.