Holistic molecular imaging and rapid phenotyping of complex biological systems
Speaker Details:
Kwanghun Chung
Massachusetts Institute of Technology / Department of Chemical Engineering
Lecture Details:
May 16, 2019
12:30 p.m.
Assistant Professor, PhD
Abstract:
Holistic measurement of diverse functional, anatomical, and molecular traits that span multiple levels, from molecules to cells to an entire system, remains a major challenge in biology. In this talk, I will introduce a series of technologies including CLARITY (Chung, 2013), SWITCH (Murrya, 2015), MAP (Ku, 2016), stochastic electrotransport (Kim, 2015), and SHIELD (Park, 2019) that enable integrated multiscale imaging and molecular phenotyping of both animal tissues and human clinical samples. I will discuss how we engineer (1) the physicochemical properties of biological tissues, (2) molecular interactions, and (3) molecular transport all together to achieve integrated organ-wide molecular phenotyping at unprecedented speed and resolution. I will also discuss how these tools can be deployed synergistically to study a broad range of biological questions. We hope that these new technologies will accelerate the pace of discovery in biomedical research.
Speaker Bio:
Kwanghun Chung is currently an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, as well as a Core Member of the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES). He is also a Core Member of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, and an Associate Member of the Broad Institute. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Seoul National University in 2005, and then moved to Georgia Institute of Technology for his Ph.D. training under the mentorship of Dr. Hang Lu, where he developed automated and integrated microsystems for high-throughput imaging, molecular/behavioral phenotyping, and cell microsurgery of a broad range of living systems. Following his graduation in 2009, Dr. Chung joined the Karl Deisseroth Lab at Stanford University for post-doctoral training in 2010, where he invented a novel technology termed CLARITY, which enables system-wide structural and molecular analysis of large-scale intact biological samples. In 2013, Dr. Chung established his independent group at MIT and has been leading an interdisciplinary team to develop and apply novel technologies for holistic understanding of large-scale complex biological systems. Chung was the recipient of the NIH New Innovator Award 2016, the Mcknight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award 2016, the Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering Award 2015, the NARSAD Young Investigator Award 2015, the Yumin Awards for Creativity 2014, the Searle Scholars Award 2014, and the BWF Career Award at the Scientific Interface 2012.