Harris Wang, Columbia University
Host: Prof. Chris Lawson
Microbes that live in soil are responsible for a variety of key decomposition and remediation activities in the biosphere. Microbes that colonize the gastrointestinal tract play important roles in host metabolism, immunity, and homeostasis. Better tools to study and alter these microbiomes are essential for unlocking their vast potential to improve human health and the environment. This talk will describe our recent efforts to develop next-generation tools to study and modify microbial communities. Specifically, I will discuss new platforms for automated microbial culturomics, techniques to genetically engineer complex microbial consortia and methods for biocontainment. These emerging capabilities provide a foundation to accelerate the development of microbiome-based products and therapies.
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Harris Wang is an Associate Professor at Columbia University jointly appointed in the Department of Systems Biology and the Department of Pathology and Cell Biology. Dr. Wang received his B.S. degrees in Mathematics and Physics from MIT and his Ph.D. in Biophysics from Harvard University. His research group mainly develops enabling genomic technologies to characterize the mammalian gut microbiome and to engineer these microbes with the capacity to monitor and improve human health. Dr. Wang is an Investigator of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the recipient of numerous awards, including the Vilcek Prize or Creative Promise in Biomedical Science, NIH Director’s Early Independence Award, NSF CAREER, Sloan Research Fellowship, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from President Obama, which is “the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.”
http://wanglab.c2b2.columbia.edu/
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