Scientific Agenda

All times listed in Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Day 1: Thursday, October 21

10:30  Introduction and Welcome Remarks 
Amy Cayne Schwartz, J.D., President of GP-write

Session 1:  Genome Design & Foundries

Moderator: Farren Isaacs, Ph.D., Yale University

10:40  Keynote Presentation: Multiplex Writing & Editing Genomes & Epigenomes 
George Church, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School

11:30  The Role of Biofoundries in Genome Engineering
Paul Freemont, Ph.D., Imperial College

12:00  Genome Project-write’s Next-Generation Genome Design Platform
Douglas Densmore, Ph.D., Boston University

Session 2: Lightning Talks

Construction of a Synthetic 57-Codon E. coli and Tools for Microbial Genome-Scale Recoding
Akos Nyerges, Harvard Medical School

Evaluation of serine-integrases activity as genome editing tools in the synthetic minimal cell Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-Syn3B
Marco de Oliveira, National Institute of Science in Synthetic Biology/EMBRAPA

Nanofluidic sequence-specific sorting of single DNA molecules:
The autonomous retrieval of specific DNA sequences from a heterogeneous pool of single-stranded DNA molecules
Hatem Mohamed Gaber Abdelrahman, Zewail City of Science and Technology 

Targeted editing and evolution of repetitive genetic elements by filtered editing
Felix Radford, Yale University

Synthetic genomes reveal coupling between transcriptional neighbourhood and transcript isoform expression
Amanda Hughes, EMBL

Development of RNA Biosensors to Detect Cancer Biomarkers Using Cell Free System
Milca Rachel da Costa Ribeiro Lins, Sao Paulo State University (UNESP)

Computational design advances (GPW-CAD)
Hugo Lins de Albuquerque Vieira, Department of Genetics and Morphology, University of Brasília

Mammalian Genome Engineering
Ralf Kuehn, Max-Delbrueck-Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, Germany  

1:00  Lunch Break [Poster Sessions and Sponsor Booths]

1:30  Poster Sessions and Sponsor Booths

Session 3: Eukaryotic & Mammalian Genome Engineering

Moderator: June Medford, Ph.D., Colorado State University

2:00  Engineering Next-Generation T Cells for Cancer Immunotherapy
Yvonne Chen, Ph.D., UCLA

2:30  Mammalian Cell Design Using Synthetic Biology
Wilson Wong, Ph.D., Boston University

3:00  Driving epigenetic centromere establishment to facilitate mammalian chromosome engineering
Ben Black, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania

3:30  Dissecting phenotypes: lessons from functional genomics and synthetic biology
Lars Steinmetz, Ph.D., Stanford University

4:00  Coffee Break and Posters

4:30-5:15  Keynote Presentation: The Chemistry of CRISPR for Genome Editing and Detection
Jennifer Doudna, Ph.D., UC Berkeley

5:30  Day 1 Closing Remarks and Adjourn

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Day 2: Friday, October 22

Session 4:  Synthetic biology and genome engineering technologies

10:00   Welcome Back Remarks
Moderator: Junbiao Dai, Ph.D., Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology

10:10  The Journey with Gene Editing Technologies - Xenotransplantation & Cell Therapy Research
Luhan Yang, Ph.D., CEO and Co-Founder of Qihan Biotech

10:40  Designing Biology for Health and Sustainability
 Pam Silver, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School

11:10  Controlling gene expression in Bacteria with CRISPR-Cas systems
David Bikard, Ph.D., Pasteur Institute

11:40  Organs on Chips and Future Medicine
Jianhua Qin, Ph.D., Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Session 5: Lightning Talks

Synthetic Biology Software
Matheus de Castro Leitão, Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Brasilia, Brazil

Synthetic Spidroin Production from Parawixia bistriata by TXTL system
Valquiria Michalczechen, National Institute of Science in Synthetic Biology/EMBRAPA

Future Organisms: Synthetic Genomics and Responsible Research and Innovation in the UK, the USA and Japan
Robert Smith, University of Edinburgh

Genetic Code Engineering Metrics and Biosafety
Markus Schmidt, BioFaction

Re-write the Yeast Genome for Customised Biosynthesis Control
Xinyu Lu, Imperial College 

Synthetic Biology In Pursuit Of The Minimal Cell Cycle
Anastasiya Malyshava, Imperial College

12:30-1:00  Biosecurity Roundtable: Sponsored by DNA Script

12:30-1:30  Poster Sessions, Sponsor Booths

Keynote Presentation
Moderator: Virginia Cornish, Ph.D., Columbia University

1:30  Keynote Presentation: Base Editing and Prime Editing: Precision Chemistry on the Genome Without Double-Strand DNA Breaks
David Liu, Ph.D., Harvard University and The Broad Institute

Session 6: Communities and Ethics in Genome Engineering

2:30  Building Microbial Communities to Understand Community Dynamics and Functions
Ophelia Venturelli, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison

3:00  Ethical and Regulatory Considerations of Writing Genomes
 Barbara Evans, J.D., Ph.D., University of Florida 

3:30-4:00  Break and Sponsor Booths, Poster Sessions

4:00  Keynote Presentation:  Writing the Future with Synthetic DNA
Emily Leproust, Ph.D., Twist Bioscience

5:00 Closing Remarks and Adjourn