Keynote Talk: Shelly Peyton, Professor, Tufts University
"How lessons from tissue engineering can help us solve grand challenges in cancer"
Abstract: Cancer remains one of medicine's greatest challenges, with metastasis and drug resistance accounting for the vast majority of cancer-related deaths. Yet our ability to study these processes has been constrained by model systems that fail to capture the mechanical and biochemical complexity of the real tumor microenvironment. Tissue engineering offers a powerful lens for addressing this gap: by designing materials that recapitulate the physical and chemical cues of living tissues, we can build platforms that reveal how cancer cells sense, adapt to, and ultimately exploit their surroundings to thrive at distant tissue sites and to ignore otherwise powerful chemotherapies and targeted drugs. In this talk, I'll discuss how our lab has used synthetic biomaterials to study breast cancer metastasis, dormancy, and drug resistance, with a focus on what these engineered models have taught us that conventional culture and animal models cannot.
Invited Talk: Mark Blenner, Associate Professor, University of Delaware
"Turning trash into treasure: using systems and synthetic biology to enable a circular economy"
Abstract: Biology is central to producing the molecules society needs in a sustainable manner; however, the complexity of biology has limited the systems we use for manufacturing. Using systems and synthetic biology, we can now tame wild microbes, which allows us to use cells with complex phenotypes not found in the model conventional microbes. This talk will cover two distinct themes in the Blenner group. The first part discusses the development and application of synthetic biology tools for oleochemical production in yeast, and cell engineering for facilitating downstream recovery of oil. The second part discusses our work to identify if and how the yellow mealworm is able to depolymerize non-hydrolyzable plastics, focused on polyethylene. We have discovered a unique enzyme subclass that is necessary for polyethylene degradation, and a new class of protein surfactants that may facilitate plastic-degrading enzyme interactions with hydrophobic plastic surfaces.
Plenary Talk: Christopher Voigt, Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“Engineered Bacteria in the Field"
Alumni Spotlight: Emma Roberge ‘22, Scientist, Process Engineering II, Lonza
"From UNH to Biotech: An Early-Career Perspective"
Abstract: In this talk I plan to discuss how UNH prepared me for industry, and the courses, experiences, and people who helped me most. I will discuss how my time at Lonza has shaped my perspectives on biotech, work life balance, and identity. I hope to give students a few key lessons that I wish I had known 5 years ago.
