Innovation by Evolution: Engineering Next-Generation of Therapeutics for Healthcare
Date: 2023/05/12 - 2023/05/12
Academic Seminar: Innovation by Evolution: Engineering Next-Generation of Therapeutics for Healthcare
Speaker: Bonnie Danqing Zhu, Assistant Professor, University of Virginia
Time: 2:00 - 3:30 p.m., May 12, 2023 (Beijing Time)
Location: CIMC Auditorium (Room 300), Longbin Building
Abstract
Directed evolution, a strategy involves the iterative genetic diversification of a molecule to create a gene pool and functional selection to isolate variants with optimal properties, has emerged as a powerful approach for re-evolving biomolecules of novel and improved functions. Recent advances in deep sequencing technologies allow millions of sequences to be assayed and used for training supervised machine learning (ML) models for prediction of protein properties. At HKUST, our group is striving to develop and engineer the next-generation of vectors for gene delivery and therapeutics in human central nervous system. In this talk, I will 1) first discuss about my path of scientific career, 2) challenges and insights as an academic researcher, as well as 3) some of our recent work in the field of gene therapy and machine-learning (ML). Specifically, we are using the combination of directed evolution and ML-guided design to engineer vectors with greatly improved properties. The extension of such integration of new technologies will have broad utility in the development of novel materials for therapeutic applications of many neurological diseases in the near future.
Biography
Bonnie Danqing Zhu joins the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering (CBE) as an Assistant Professor in 2023. Bonnie completed her B.S in Engineering Sciences at University of Virginia, working with Prof. Edward Botchwey on nanofiber fabrication techniques for drug delivery. She then continued her Ph.D. at Stanford University in Bioengineering, working with Prof. Fan Yang and Prof. Sarah Heilshorn to design novel biomaterials for stem cell delivery and tissue regeneration. Her research employs materials chemistry, protein engineering, and stem cell approaches to develop models of tissue development that capture the dynamic complexity of cell-extracellular matrix interactions. She then continued her training as CIRM Postdoctoral Fellow and Siebel Scholar at UC Berkeley and UCSF, working in Prof. David Schaffer, Tomasz Nowakowski, and Jennifer Listgarten’s group. Her current work focuses on using protein engineering and computational approaches to engineer safe and targeted therapeutic gene delivery vectors for treatment of neurological diseases. She currently has four U.S. provisional patents and her works have been published in journals including Advanced Functional Materials, Biomaterials, Trends in Molecular Medicine, etc.