Faculty & Research
Name
Research Areas
Contact
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Nikta Fakhri
Thomas D. & Virginia W. Cabot Career Development Associate Professor of Physics617-324-6727Short Bio
Nikta is the Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Career Development Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at MIT and Physics of Living Systems Group. She completed her undergraduate degree at Sharif University of Technology and her PhD at Rice University. She was a Human Frontier Science Program postdoctoral fellow at Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen, Germany before joining MIT. Nikta is an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Physics. She is the recipient of the 2018 IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Biological Physics and the 2019 NSF CAREER Award.
Photo credit by Steph Stevens
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Sergey Ovchinnikov
Assistant Professor of Biology617-258-7851Short Bio
Sergey Ovchinnikov uses phylogenetic inference, protein structure prediction/determination, protein design, deep learning, energy-based models, and differentiable programming to tackle evolutionary questions at environmental, organismal, genomic, structural, and molecular scales, with the aim of developing a unified model of protein evolution.
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Yiyin Erin Chen
Assistant Professor of Biology; Core Member, Broad Institute(617) 714-7072Short Bio
Diverse commensal microbes colonize every surface of our bodies. We study the constant communication between these microbes and our immune system. We focus on our largest organ: the skin. By employing microbial genetics, immunologic approaches, and mouse models, we can dissect (1) the molecular signals used by microbes to educate our immune system and (2) how different microbial communities alter immune responses. Ultimately, we aim to harness these microbe-host interactions to engineer novel vaccines and therapeutics for human disease. -
Daniel Lew
Professor of BiologyShort Bio
Faculty Bio: Daniel Lew joined the Department of Biology at MIT as a Professor in the Spring of 2023. Professor Lew completed a PhD in Molecular Biology from the Rockefeller University in 1990, and then did postdoctoral work at the Scripps Research Institute where he investigated the cell cycle control in the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. His research focuses on the study of cell polarity and the spatial decoding of chemical signals by cells, which are critical for many biological phenomena.
Research Summary: We study questions in fundamental cell biology, using fungal models and a mix of experimental and computational approaches. Fungi and animals share conserved molecular strategies to perform many core cell functions, so the tractable yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae provides a superb model system to gain in-depth understanding that can be translated into computational models. We also study an emerging non-model fungus, Aureobasidium pullulans, that is an ubiquitous poly-extremophile with unconventional growth modes that raise novel questions in cell biology.
Some questions of interest:
- How do cells regulate cell polarity to achieve different morphologies?
- How do cells orient cell polarity in response to extracellular signals?
- How do cells distribute their contents, particularly in complex geometries?
- How do fungi growing under stringent turgor pressure expand their cell walls without lysing?
- How do cell-cell contacts between cell walls communicate mechanical information to the cell?
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Ron Weiss
Professor of Biological EngineeringShort Bio
The Weiss Laboratory seeks to create integrated biological systems capable of autonomously performing useful tasks, and to elucidate the design principles underlying complex phenotypes. Cells sense their environment, process information, and continuously react to both internal and external stimuli. The construction of synthetic gene networks can help improve our understanding of such naturally existing regulatory functions within cells. Synthetic gene networks will also enable a wide range of new programmed cells applications. We use computer engineering principles of abstraction, composition, and interface specifications to program cells with sensors and actuators precisely controlled by analog and digital logic circuitry.
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Bruce Walker
Professor of the Practice, MIT IMES; Director, Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute857-268-7073Short Bio
Bruce Walker investigates cellular immune responses in chronic human viral infections, with a particular focus on HIV immunology and vaccine development. The overarching goal of my laboratory is to define the interplay of immunologic, virologic and host genetic factors that determine control of human viral infections, to guide vaccine development and immunotherapeutic interventions. To address this goal, we focus on HIV infection.
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Christopher Voigt
Professor of Biological Engineering617-324-4851Short Bio
Genetic engineering is undergoing a revolution, where next-generation technologies for DNA and host manipulation are enabling larger and more ambitious projects in biotechnology. Automated DNA synthesis has advanced to where it is routine to order sequences >100,000bp where every base is user-specified, the turnaround time is several weeks, and the cost is rapidly declining. Recently, this facilitated the synthesis of a complete 1 Mbp genome of a bacterium and its transfer into a new host, resulting in a living cell. However, while whole genomes can be constructed, the ability to design such systems is lagging. The focus of my lab is to develop new experimental and theoretical methods to push the scale of genetic engineering, with the ultimate objective of genome design. This will impact the engineering of biology for a broad range of applications, including agriculture, materials, chemicals, and medicine.
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Bruce Tidor
Professor of Biological Engineering and Computer Science617-253-7258Short Bio
Our research is focused on the analysis of complex biological systems at both the molecular level and the systems level. Our molecular work concentrates on the structure and properties of proteins, nucleic acids, and their complexes. Investigations probe the sources of stability and specificity that drive folding and binding events of macromolecules. Studies are aimed at dissecting the interactions responsible for the specific structure of folded proteins and the binding geometry of molecular complexes. The roles played by salt bridges, hydrogen bonds, side-chain packing, rotameric states, solvation, and the hydrophobic effect in native biomolecules are being explored, and strategies for re-casting these roles through structure-based molecular design are being developed.
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Gregory Stephanopolous
Willard Henry Dow Professor in Chemical Engineering617-253-4583Short Bio
Professor Stephanopoulos currently works in Cambridge, at the Department of Chemical Engineering of MIT, focusing on biotechnology, specifically metabolic and biochemical engineering. He is the Director of the Metabolic Engineering Laboratory. His group of approximately 20 graduate students and post-docs conducts research on various projects aiming at the development of biological production routes to chemical products and biofuels. Another program is investigating cancer as metabolic disease. More information about on-going research can be found in the research page of this site.
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Anthony Sinskey
(1940-2025) Professor of Microbiology and Health Sciences & TechnologyShort Bio
Prof. Sinskey has passed away at the age of 84.
Anthony J. Sinskey, Sc.D., was a Professor of Microbiology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and held positions as Co-Director of the Malaysia-MIT Biotechnology Partnership Program and Faculty Director of the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation (CBI). He conducted interdisciplinary research in metabolic engineering, focusing on the fundamental physiology, biochemistry, and molecular genetics of important organisms. Dr. Sinskey was well known in the biopharmaceutical industry and was the Scientific Co-founder of several biotechnology companies, including Genzyme Corporation, Natural Pharmaceuticals, Metabolix, Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, and Tepha. Dr. Sinskey has given over 300 presentations at U.S. and International scientific meetings and congresses. He has received 31 issued patents, has made more than 30 invention disclosures, and has published more than 300 scientific papers in leading peer-reviewed journals for biology, metabolic engineering, and biopolymer engineering.