The Paul Hall Symposium
Thursday April 11, 2024
12:45 PM – 3:00 PM
Paul Hall Auditorium (First Floor)
Please plan to join us for a symposium with renowned researchers to honor the future of groundbreaking endeavors in Paul Hall for years to come.
SCHEDULE
12:45 PM
Kimberly L. Foster, PhD – Dean, School of Science & Engineering
Welcome and Introduction
12:55 PM
Steven M. Paul, MD (A&S ’72, G ’75, M ’75) – Board of Tulane; School of Science & Engineering Board of Advisors; Physician, Neuroscientist and Entrepreneur
Opening Remarks
1:00 PM
George M. Church, PhD
“Educating Machines + Machinists: How To Grow Almost Anything”
We are well into an era of hybrids and exponentials – anti-disciplined yet hopefully rigorous; speedy yet hopefully not hasty. We’ll consider specific examples from my team:
1) reducing by 20 million-fold the cost of reading and writing DNA affects the cost of many things programmable via DNA, enabling global, equitable access e.g. for vaccines, gene therapies, and diagnostics; 2): AI-ML plus Multiplex Libraries (aka ML+ML) allows radical changes in protein, RNA and cell function; 3) & 4) We are increasingly capable of reversing the degradation of our aging bodies and our environments.
Introduction by Michael Moore, PhD – Professor and Chair, Department of Biomedical Engineering
2:00 PM
Robert S. Langer, ScD
“From Nanotechnology to mRNA Vaccines: How overcoming skepticism led to new medical treatments and ways to tackle a global health challenge”
Advanced drug delivery systems are having an enormous impact on human health. We start by discussing our early research on developing the first controlled release systems for macromolecules and the isolation of angiogenesis inhibitors and how these led to numerous new therapies. This early research then led to new drug delivery technologies including nanoparticles and nanotechnology that are now being studied for use treating cancer, other illnesses and in vaccine delivery (including the Covid-19 vaccine). Finally, by combining mammalian cells, including stem cells, with synthetic polymers, new approaches for engineering tissues are being developed that may someday help in various diseases. These can also serve as a basis for tissues on a chip which can potentially reduce animal and human testing. Examples in the areas of cartilage, skin, blood vessels, GI tract and heart tissue are discussed.
Introduction by Parastoo Khoshakhlagh, PhD (SSE ’13, SSE ’15) – CEO and Co-Founder, GC Therapeutics
FEATURED SPEAKERS
George M. Church, PhD
Educating Machines + Machinists: How To Grow Almost Anything”
George Church is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Director of PersonalGenomes.org, which provides the world’s only open-access information on human Genomic, Environmental & Trait data (GET). His 1984 Harvard PhD included the first methods for direct genome sequencing, molecular multiplexing & barcoding. These led to the first genome sequence (pathogen, Helicobacter pylori) in 1994 .
His innovations have contributed to nearly all “next generation” DNA sequencing methods and companies (CGI-BGI, Life, Illumina, Nanopore). This plus his lab’s work on chip-DNA-synthesis, gene editing and stem cell engineering resulted in founding additional application-based companies spanning fields of medical diagnostics ( Knome/PierianDx, Alacris, Nebula, Veritas ) & synthetic biology / therapeutics ( AbVitro/Juno, Gen9/enEvolv/Zymergen/Warpdrive/Gingko, Editas, Egenesis ). He has also pioneered new privacy, biosafety, ELSI, environmental & biosecurity policies. He was director of an IARPA BRAIN Project and 3 NIH Centers for Excellence in Genomic Science (2004-2020). His honors include election to NAS & NAE & Franklin Bower Laureate for Achievement in Science. He has coauthored 650 papers, 156 patent publications & a book (Regenesis).
©2015 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation
Robert S. Langer, ScD
From Nanotechnology to mRNA Vaccines: How overcoming skepticism led to new medical treatments and ways to tackle a global health challenge
Robert Langer is one of 8 Institute Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); being an Institute Professor is the highest honor that can be awarded to a faculty member.
Robert Langer is one of 8 Institute Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); being an Institute Professor is the highest honor that can be awarded to a faculty member. He has written over 1,500 articles, which have been cited over 417,000 times; his h-index of 321 is the highest of any engineer in history and the 3rd highest of any individual in any field. His patents have licensed or sublicensed to over 400 companies; he is a cofounder of a number of companies including Moderna. Dr Langer served as Chairman of the FDA’s Science Board (its highest advisory board) from 1999-2002. His over 220 awards include both the United States National Medal of Science and the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation (he is one of 3 living individuals to have received both these honors), the Charles Stark Draper Prize (often called the Engineering Nobel Prize), Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, Albany Medical Center Prize, Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, Kyoto Prize, Wolf Prize for Chemistry, Millennium Technology Prize, Priestley Medal (highest award of the American Chemical Society), Gairdner Prize, Hoover Medal, Dreyfus Prize in Chemical Sciences, BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biomedicine, Balzan Prize, and the Dr. Paul Janssen Award. He holds 42 honorary doctorates, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Northwestern, and has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors.