CPOS Seminar: "Optogenetics in Bio-enabled Materials and Brain Cancer Control"

Speaker: Lisa Månsson, Ph.D. candidate, Materials Science, UCSB, Co-advised by Angela Pitenis (Materials) & Max Wilson (Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology)

My work is at the interface of synthetic biology and materials science, using light-sensitive proteins from plants that nature engineered through years and years of evolution. First, I will explain how these “opto-proteins”, commonly used in optogenetics, can be used for opto-enabled materials, a new category of soft materials, endowed with light-tunable properties suitable as dynamic cell culture environments. Second, I study the cell itself as an active material, a system that engineers its own material world, and how we can control it with the same opto-proteins. Targeting how cells handle diseased or wounded states, we chose to specifically study their integrated stress response, reprogramming cells in response to stress in glioblastoma brain cancer. Finally, I will discuss how the structure of the cell as an active material influences its response to stressors and recovery.