For other people named James Collins, see James Collins ( disambiguation ) James J. Collins ( born June 26, 1965 ) is an american bioengineer, and the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering & Science and Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT. He is one of the founders of the emerging field of synthetic biology, and has made multiple celluloid biology breakthroughs in biotechnology and biomedicine, including paper-based diagnostics for Zika & Ebola and programmable cells that serve as life diagnostics and living therapeutics to detect-and-treat infections, rare genetic metabolic disorders, and incendiary intestine disease. Collins is besides a pioneering research worker in systems biota, having made fundamental discoveries regarding the actions of antibiotics and the emergence of antibiotic resistance. [ 2 ]

Collins was elected a penis of the National Academy of Engineering in 2011 for contributions to synthetic biota and mastermind gene networks .

biography [edit ]

Collins received a bachelor ‘s degree in physics ( summa semen laude ; class valedictorian ) from the College of the Holy Cross in 1987 and a doctor’s degree in Medical Engineering from the University of Oxford in 1990. From 1987 to 1990, he was a Rhodes Scholar. Currently, Collins is the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering & Science and Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT. Collins is besides a congress of racial equality establish faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard. Collins is besides staff lead for life sciences at the MIT Jameel Clinic since 2018. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] From 1990 to 2014, he was on the staff at Boston University, where he was a William F. Warren Distinguished Professor, a University Professor, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Co-Director of the Center for BioDynamics and Director of the Center of Synthetic Biology. Collins ‘ scientific accomplishments have been recognized by numerous awards, including the NIH Director ‘s Pioneer Award, the Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar Award in Aging, the inaugural Anthony J. Drexel Exceptional Achievement Award, the Lagrange Prize from the CRT Foundation in Italy, the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Award, the BMES Robert A. Pritzker Award, the HFSP Nakasone Award, the Promega Biotechnology Research Award, and being selected for Technology Review ‘s inaugural TR100 – 100 young innovators who will shape the future of technology [ 5 ] – and the Scientific American 50 – the top 50 outstanding leaders in skill and engineering. [ 6 ] Collins is besides a Fellow of the american Physical Society, the Institute of Physics, and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. In 2003, he received a MacArthur Foundation “ Genius Award “, [ 1 ] becoming the beginning bioengineer to receive this honor. Collins ‘ award citation noted, “ Throughout his inquiry, Collins demonstrates a proclivity for identifying abstraction principles that underlie complex biological phenomenon and for using these concepts to solve concrete, virtual problems. ”. He was besides honored as a medical All-Star by the Boston Red Sox, and threw out the first pitch at a Red Sox game in Fenway Park. In 2016, Collins was named an Allen Distinguished Investigator by the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group. Collins is an elect member of all three U.S. home academies – the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Medicine. He is besides an elect colleague of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, equally well as a charter companion of the National Academy of Inventors. Collins is a talented and committed teacher. He has won numerous teach awards at Boston University, including the Biomedical Engineering Teacher of the Year Award, the College of Engineering Professor of the Year Award, and the Metcalf Cup and Prize for Excellence in Teaching, which is the highest teach honor awarded by Boston University. [ 7 ] Collins has been involved with a number of start-up companies, and his inventions and technologies have been licensed by several biotechnology and medical device companies. Collins is the scientific co-founder and presently chairs the Scientific Advisory Board ( SAB ) of Sample6 Technologies, Synlogic and EnBiotix. He serves on the Board of Directors of Fulcrum Therapeutics and the SAB of Agilis Biotherapeutics, Evelo Biosciences, enEvolv, Indigo Agriculture, Joule Unlimited, PureTech Health and Excel Medical Ventures. additionally, he has served on the SAB of Mannkind Corporation, Seres Health, Codon Devices, Selventa, Gene Network Sciences, Epitome Biosystems, Afferent Corp, Cellicon Biotechnologies, Synereca Pharmaceuticals, LifeWave Ltd, and Bios Group Inc. Collins has besides served as a science adviser to Unilever, Lifebuoy, Agilent, Momenta Pharmaceuticals, the New England Patriots, and Brooks Sports.

Collins ran track and hybridization nation at Holy Cross ( he was a 4:17 miler ), and earned a blasphemous play for the varsity basketball team at the University of Oxford .

influence [edit ]

Collins has pioneered the development and use of nonlinear dynamic approaches to study, mimic and improve biological routine, and helped to transform biota into an engineering skill. His current research interests include : synthetic biology – model, designing and constructing man-made gene networks, and systems biology – turn back engineering naturally occurring gene regulative networks. Collins has invented a count of novel devices and techniques, including vibrating insoles for enhancing balance, [ 8 ] a prokaryotic riboregulator, [ 9 ] bistable genetic toggle switches [ 10 ] for biotechnology and bioenergy applications, dynamic dominance techniques for eliminating cardiac cardiac arrhythmia, and systems biology techniques for identifying drug targets [ 11 ] [ 12 ] and disease mediators. [ 13 ] Collins proposed that stimulation make noise could be used to enhance sensory function and centrifugal command in humans. He and collaborators showed that contact sense and balance control in young and older adults, patients with stroke, and patients with diabetic neuropathy could be improved with the lotion of sub-sensory mechanical randomness, for example, via vibrating insoles. This exercise has led to the initiation of a new class of medical devices to address complications resulting from diabetic neuropathy, repair genius affair following stroke, and improve aged libra. Collins has pioneered the use of techniques from nonlinear dynamics and molecular biology to model, invention and construct engineered gene networks, leading to the development of the plain of man-made biota. Collins and collaborators have created genic toggle switches, RNA switches, genetic counters, programmable cells, tunable mammal familial switches, and engineer bacteriophage, each with broad applications in biotechnology and biomedicine.

Collins is besides one of the leading researchers in systems biology, pioneering the use of experimental-computational biophysical techniques to reverse engineer and analyze endogenous gene regulative networks. Collins and collaborators showed that reverse-engineered gene networks can be used to identify drug targets, biological mediators and disease biomarkers. Collins and collaborators discovered, using systems biology approaches, that all classes of bactericidal antibiotics induce a common oxidative price cellular death nerve pathway. [ 14 ] This line up indicates that targeting bacterials systems that remediate oxidative damage, including the SOS DNA damage answer, is a feasible means of enhancing the effectiveness of all major classes of antibiotics and limiting the emergence of antibiotic immunity. Collins and co-workers besides discovered that sublethal levels of antibiotics activate mutagenesis by stimulating the production of reactive oxygen species, leading to multidrug resistance. [ 15 ] This discovery has significant implications for the widespread manipulation and misapply of antibiotics. recently, Collins and colleagues, using their systems approaches, discovered a population-based resistance mechanism constituting a form of kin choice whereby a humble numeral of immune bacterial mutants, in the side of antibiotic stress, can, at some cost to themselves, provide protection to other more vulnerable, cells, enhancing the survival capacity of the overall population in nerve-racking environments. [ 16 ] In 2020, Collins was separate of the team—with mate MIT Jameel Clinic staff lead Professor Regina Barzilay —that announced the discovery through trench memorize of halicin, the first new antibiotic compound for 30 years, which kills over 35 powerful bacteria, including antimicrobial-resistant tuberculosis, the superbug C. difficile, and two of the World Health Organization ‘s top-three most deadly bacteria. [ 17 ] [ 18 ] [ 19 ] In 2020, Collins, Barzilay and the MIT Jameel Clinic were besides awarded fund through The Audacious Project to expand on the discovery of halicin in using AI to respond to the antibiotic resistance crisis through the development of raw classes of antibiotics. [ 20 ] [ 21 ]

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