O Date: June 05, 2024

O Start Time: 4:00 PM

O Venue: YBS Bldg. #207

O Speaker: Woojung Shin

O Position & Affiliation:  Assistant Professor,

                                            Dept. Bio&Brain Engineering, KAIST 

O Title:  Employing Engineering Principles to Investigate Host-microbiome Crosstalk

O Abstract: 

The human microbiome and their community shape human physiology through unceasing crosstalk with the host. Because a disturbed host-microbiome ecosystem often leads to disease development, it is of great importance to scrutinize the role of the microbiome in disease milieus to develop better diagnostic, therapeutic, and prognostic strategies. While probiotic intervention or fecal microbiota transplantation have shown clinical potential, microbiome-based therapies are often questionable in terms of clinical implementability, therapeutic efficacy, and underlying mechanism. Here, I discuss breakthrough technologies that leverage microphysiological organ models and synthetic biology to study the contributions of the human microbiome and to develop next-generation living therapeutics. To discover complex host-microbiome crosstalk in human organs, microphysiological systems that faithfully mimic 3D tissue structure, in vivo-relevant functions, oxygen-controlled microenvironment, and biomechanics have been developed and utilized. Synthetic biology approaches allow engineering the genetic machinery of human commensal gut bacteria or probiotic strains to innovate the functions of “druggable designer microbiome” towards programmable living therapeutics. Hence, we envision that the convergence of microengineering principles and synthetic biology strategies will bring a significant translational impact on Precision Medicine and open up new avenues for studying the human microbiome.

* The seminar will be held offline and online[https://kaist.zoom.us/j/81677616489] simultaneously.

* Closed Caption interpretation service (English) available online (service provided by Zoom)