Synthetic & Xenobiology

Synthetic biology is a field focused on engineering or re-designing cells, genes, and pathways. Our group is interested in engineering various types of cells to combat disease (e.g. cell-based therapies). Xenobiology is a sub-branch of synthetic biology that seeks to modify the fundamental building blocks of life, including nucleic acids (e.g. DNA) and polypeptides. For example, chemically-modified nucleic acids, also called xenonucleic acids (XNAs), are commonly used in nucleic acid-based therapeutics developed by the pharmaceutical industry because they demonstrate superior serum stability compared to natural DNA and RNA. Currently, our group is working on using these synthetic XNAs to improve the specificity of gene editing agents. In addition, we are exploring if XNAs can be stably incorporated into living cells and organisms for a variety of biotechnological applications.