WEHI Special Seminar hosted by Professor Shalin Naik and Associate Professor Chris Tonkin

Dr David T. Riglar
Lecturer in Synthetic Biology, Department of Infectious Disease – Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, UK

Engineering gut bacteria to eavesdrop on elusive signals of host health and disease

Davis Auditorium

Join via TEAMS

Including Q&A session

The trillions of microbes that live inside our guts – together known as the gut microbiota – are critical for our immune development and ongoing health and wellbeing. Changes to this microbiota are linked to diseases of global health importance, including infection, cancer, metabolic disease, and various inflammatory disorders. Understanding of the complex and dynamic interface between host and microbe is therefore not only of profound biological interest but could also inform future clinical interventions.

Engineered bacteria have emerged as powerful tools for deployment in the mammalian gut for a range of health-related synthetic biology applications, including non-invasive disease diagnostics and ‘sense-and-respond’ biotherapeutics. Here, I will discuss ways that we are using these engineered bacterial tools to help us understand the gut environment during disease.

David Riglar’s research uses a combination of synthetic biology, imaging and sequencing based approaches to better understand the function of the gut and its resident microbiota during health and disease. This knowledge is driving development of innovative technologies, such as living engineered probiotics, to probe and control the gut environment. David is a Lecturer in Synthetic Biology in the Department of Infectious Disease at Imperial College London, and a Satellite Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute. He has received various accolades throughout his career including a Sir Henry Dale Research Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust and Royal Society and a NHMRC/ RG Menzies Postdoctoral Fellowship.

All Welcome!