Michael A. Savageau Lecture in Molecular Systems Biology

The Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics presents:

 

Michael A. Savageau Lecture in Molecular Systems Biology

 

Speaker: Calin Guet, Ph.D., Professor of Systems and Synthetic Biology of Genetic Networks at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria
 

Dr. Guet presents: "Systems and Synthetic Biology as non-identical twins"
 

A reception will follow the lecture in the Genome and Biomedical Sciences Facility Foyer area. The event is hosted by Distinguished Professor and Department Chair, Wolf-Dietrich Heyer.
 

Calin Guet was born and raised in Romania. At the age of 18, he moved to Germany, where he had various jobs for a few years before starting undergraduate studies at Princeton in 1993, majoring with a BA in Physics. For his undergraduate thesis, Calin Guet made a stint at ESPCI in Paris (ÉCOLE SUPÉRIEURE DE PHYSIQUE ET DE CHIMIE INDUSTRIELLES DE LA VILLE DE PARIS), working with Anthony Maggs on computational aspects of biochemical networks.
 

For his doctoral work, Calin Guet remained in Princeton for a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and moved for part of it to Rockefeller with his adviser, Stanislas Leibler. As part of his PhD work, he built and characterized synthetic gene regulatory networks that implemented basic biomolecular computation.

 

In 2004, Calin Guet moved to the University of Chicago for a postdoc with Philippe Cluzel and moved with him to Harvard in 2008. During his postdoc, he developed a method for measuring in vivo and in real time very low levels of RNAs in living bacteria at the single-cell level.

 

Since 2011, Calin Guet has remained in Austria, where he started a research group at IST Austria (Institute of Science and Technology Austria), as their first Assistant Professor and one of IST’s founding members. Using bacteria and their phage as model systems, his group works on questions at the interface of genetics, molecular biology, physiology, evolution and ecology.
 

Systems Biology and Synthetic Biology emerged as experimental research disciplines quarter of a century ago. However, their individual histories can be traced much further back in time. Dr. Guet will present the surprisingly rich history of these two disciplines, together with ideas of why these two fields became popular at the turn of the millennium and will discuss the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

 

The Michael A. Savageau Lecture in Molecular Systems Biology Fund supports UC Davis in bringing to campus prominent speakers who exemplify the creative use of mathematical and computational methods to achieve mechanistic understanding of function, design, and evolution of molecular systems, and to enrich this multidisciplinary activity at UC Davis through the speakers’ interactions with both faculty and students.
 

If you wish to donate to the Michael A. Savageau Lecture in Molecular Systems Biology Fund, please visit https://give.ucdavis.edu/BMIC/124619