Wilson Wong
Assistant Professor
Biomedical Engineering Department
Boston University
Seminar Information
Genetically engineered cells hold great promise for improving therapeutics, diagnostics, animal models, and industrial biotechnological processes. Here I will describe our Universal Chimeric Antigen Receptors for customizable control of T cell responses. This Universal CAR system could improve the safety and efficacy of cellular cancer immunotherapy. I will also discuss our Boolean and Arithmetic through DNA Excision (BLADE) system for designing genetic circuits with multiple inputs and outputs in mammalian cells. BLADE enables execution of sophisticated cellular computation, with applications in cell and tissue engineering. Together, the Universal CAR and BLADE systems highlight an expanding tool set for flexibly controlling mammalian cell functions.
Wilson Wong is an Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Boston University, and a core member of the BU Biological Design Center. His lab is focused on developing synthetic biology tools in mammalian systems for cell-based immunotherapy. He received his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from UCLA under the guidance from Dr. James Liao. He did his postdoctoral work with Dr. Wendell Lim and Dr. Arthur Weiss at UCSF. He is the recipient of the NIH Director’s New Innovator and NSF CAREER Award.