iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

The Elowitz Lab at Caltech @elowitzlab.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

This was an energizing event with excellent scientists in a gorgeous location. Thank you for making it happen!

The Elowitz Lab at Caltech @elowitzlab.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

Thank you for an energizing meeting with an amazing group of scientists in a beautiful volcano-strewn landscape. Wonderful event

033

The Elowitz Lab at Caltech @elowitzlab.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

This work was led by brilliant students Andrew Lu, Lukas Moeller, and Stephen Moore, and is a collaboration with Hao Zhu and Dan Siegwart at UTSW. If you have experience in animal cancer models and are interested in circuit therapeutics, please reach out.

010

The Elowitz Lab at Caltech @elowitzlab.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

In a mouse model of Ras-driven liver cancer, systemic treatment with the circuits (lower row) reduced tumor burden compared to untreated controls (upper row). Much more to explore.

100

The Elowitz Lab at Caltech @elowitzlab.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

We compared circuits (right) with Ras inhibitors (RMC-7977 and Sotorasib) by targeting mutant cells (magenta) co-cultured with wild-type Ras cells (green). Circuits were potent and selective.

100

The Elowitz Lab at Caltech @elowitzlab.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

We tried many, many, many circuit designs, eventually generating ones that sensitively discriminate Ras mutant cancer cells. We also generated protease-activated proteases to amplify weak oncogenic signals.

100

The Elowitz Lab at Caltech @elowitzlab.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Why therapeutic circuits? Sense-and-kill ≠ inhibit. Oncogene inhibition indirectly induces cell death, but is susceptible to resistance through compensatory signaling. Circuits directly rewire oncogenes to cell death --> less chance of resistance. Other benefits as well.

100

The Elowitz Lab at Caltech @elowitzlab.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

In this paradigm, engineered proteins are introduced into cancer and healthy cells using LNP-delivered mRNA. They then sense cancer markers (such as mutant Ras) and trigger engineered cell death effectors (caspases or gasdermins) only in cancer cells. (idealized schematic)

120

The Elowitz Lab at Caltech @elowitzlab.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Synthetic biology could enable new types of programmable therapeutics. Our new preprint introduces synthetic protein circuits that selectively trigger cell death in Ras-mutant cancer cells, with interesting advantages compared to existing approaches. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

biorxiv.org

36517

The Elowitz Lab at Caltech @elowitzlab.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Congratulations to Dhiraj and the other amazing fellows

031

Reposted by The Elowitz Lab at Caltech

Jacob Parres-Gold @jacobparresau.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

My first project in the @elowitzlab.bsky.social is finally out in @cellpress.bsky.social! We explore how competitive, "many-to-many" dimerization allows complex, multi-input, and cell-type-specific biochemical computations🧵↓ doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...

doi.org

Redirecting

1175

Reposted by The Elowitz Lab at Caltech

allen institute @alleninstitute.org · 19/02/2025

New study in @cellpress.bsky.social by Allen Distinguished Investigator @elowitzlab.bsky.social and collaborators explores the versatility of protein dimers. #FrontierScience 🔗 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

0208

Reposted by The Elowitz Lab at Caltech

Andrew Leduc @andrewleduc.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

I really enjoyed reading this preprint, congrats @elowitzlab.bsky.social and team!

061

Reposted by The Elowitz Lab at Caltech

Carolyn Bertozzi @carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social · 08/02/2025

Another assault on US competitiveness at a time when biomedicine is roaring with innovation, an own-goal in a high-stakes international tournament. Of course the real losers are American people needing medicines and cures. www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

washingtonpost.com

NIH cuts billions of dollars in biomedical funding, effective immediately

The move halts a large slice of money for most universities and research institutions virtually overnight, imperiling vital research in everything from cancer to heart disease.

571670525

The Elowitz Lab at Caltech @elowitzlab.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

Really enjoying Uri Alon’s characteristically wonderful lectures on aging: www.weizmann.ac.il/mcb/alon/cou...

weizmann.ac.il

Systems Aging (autumn 2024)

Course Theme Song

0173

Reposted by The Elowitz Lab at Caltech

Alice Ting @aliceyting.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

Could one envision a synthetic receptor technology that is fully programmable, able to detect diverse extracellular antigens – both soluble and cell-attached – and convert that recognition into a wide range of intracellular responses, from gene expression and real-time fluorescence to modulation..

33434138

The Elowitz Lab at Caltech @elowitzlab.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

"The lives of cells, recorded"--our new review on genomic recording systems and how they can reveal the dynamics of multicellular development. A pleasure to work on this with amazing colleagues from the Allen Discovery Center for Cell Lineage Tracing. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.com

The lives of cells, recorded - Nature Reviews Genetics

Recent advances in genome engineering are enabling the recording of cellular histories into genomes, with single-cell and spatial omics technologies enabling their reconstruction into cellular lineage...

214257

Reposted by The Elowitz Lab at Caltech

Savas Tay @savastay.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

We are looking for new Bioengineering and Systems Biology faculty at University of Chicago, please apply and spread the news: apply.interfolio.com/157759 #science #faculty #biology #engineering #academia #technology #research #phd

apply.interfolio.com

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

0179