5th Annual Mid-Atlantic Synthetic Biology Network (MASBN) Symposium Program Schedule

University of Delaware, Audion at STAR Tower, 100 Discovery Blvd, Newark, DE 19713

Thursday, Jan. 9, 2024
Location: Audion, STAR Tower

2:00PM Registration Opens/Coffee & Snacks
2:30PM Welcome Remarks | Speaker: Keith Kozminski. UVA
2:35PM Session 1 – New to the Mid-Atlantic | Session Chair: Tara Deans, GA Tech
2:40PM Engineered CRISPR systems for drug discovery | Speaker: Sherry Gao. UPenn
3:00PM TBD | Speaker: Ophelia Venturelli, Duke
3:20PM Coffee Break
3:40PM Biofabrication and Biomaterial Approaches for In Vitro 3D Models of Microbial Collectives | Speaker: Victoria Muir, UDel
3:55PM Using synthetic biology to engineer living electronic materials | Speaker: Josh Atkinson. Princeton
4:15PM De novo engineered living materials from bacteria | Speaker: Sara Molinari, UMD
4:35PM Coffee Break
4:50PM Session 2 – Fostering a Regional Innovation Ecosystem | Session Chair: Aditya Kunjapur, UDel
4:55PM History of DE Life Science & STAR Campus | Speaker: TBD. Udel
5:05PM Innovation in Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing – the story of NIIMBL | Speaker: Kelvin Lee, UDel
5:20PM Panel on Accelerating Research Translation | Speakers: Mark Blenner, UDel, Jill Higginson, UDel, Nicole Merli, UDel, Bill Provine, DIS
6:05PM Reception and Poster Session
8:00PM End of Day 1

Friday, Jan. 10, 2024
Location: Audion, STAR Tower Speaker

8:00AM Registration Opens / Continental Breakfast
9:00AM Introduction of Keynote Speaker
9:05AM Keynote: Engineering Bacteria for Environmental Release | Speaker: Chris Voigt, MIT
9:50AM Coffee Break
10:00AM Session 3 – Building Communities (of Microbes) | Chair: Nathan Crook, NC State
10:05AM TBD | Speaker: Bill Bentley. UMD
10:25AM Next-generation Biological Security and Biohackathon | Speaker: Corey Wilson, GA Tech
10:45AM Combinatorial and evolutionary engineering of probiotic yeast for in situ biomanufacturing | Speaker: Nathan Crook, NC State
11:05AM Engineering soil bacteria for long-term detection of TNT explosive in natural soil | Speaker: Howard Salis, Penn State
11:25AM TBD | Trainee talks, Mostly UD
11:45AM Buffet Lunch (Tex-Mex)
1:00PM Session 4 – SynBio for Health | Chair: Jamie Spangler, JHU
1:05PM New methods towards synthetic antibody production in yeast | Speaker: Johnny Blazeck, GA Tech
1:25PM Synthesizing protein engineering with metabolic glycoengineering to enhance antibody design and function | Speaker: Jamie Spangler, JHU
1:45PM Protein Engineering Approaches for Studying Cell Signaling | Speaker: Larry Stern USF
2:05PM Developing Barley Stripe Mosaic Virus-Like Particles as Modular Nanovaccines | Speaker: Akash Vaidya (Solomon Lab), UD
2:15PM Next-generation manufacturing and design of nitrated antigens for vaccination against infectious disease | Speaker: Neil Butler (Kunjapur Lab), UD /Nitro Bio
2:25PM Coffee Break
2:40PM Session 5 – SynBio for Sustainability OR Tour of NIIMBL (Meet at APBio) | Chair: Josh Michener, ORNL
2:45PM Understanding the tunability of methyl-coenzyme M reductase for methane bioconversion applications | Speaker: Kylie Allen, VA Tech
3:05PM Engineering Bacillus species for improved microbiome engineering | Speaker: Josh Michener, ORNL
3:25PM Engineering biology across the central dogma | Speaker: Samuel Schaffter, NIST
3:45PM Closing Remarks
3:50PM End of Symposium

REGISTRATION IS CLOSED

About the Mid-Atlantic Synthetic Biology Symposium

This NSF-sponsored symposium showcases research and opportunities in all areas of synthetic biology across the Mid-Atlantic region, welcoming researchers, educators, entrepreneurs, and leaders in academia, government, and the private sector who share a common interest in synthetic biology and its enabling technologies. The symposium will feature platform presentations, discussion panel, poster session, and time to network.

There is no registration fee.  The registration deadline is November 27.

The Mid-Atlantic Synthetic Biology Network (MASBN) is a diverse and welcoming community of researchers, educators, entrepreneurs, and leaders in academia, government, and the private sector who share a common interest in synthetic biology and its enabling technologies.

We are found in Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. We work in a variety of areas, including but not limited to agricultural and water sustainability, diagnostics, therapeutics, biosecurity and defense, energy, nutrition and food security, information processing, and manufacturing.