A Guide to Harnessing DNA Assembly for Drug Discovery

Current DNA synthesis and assembly technologies give today’s genetic engineers unprecedented freedom to control every aspect of genetic design. In this webinar, Dr Michael Smanski - Professor at the University of Minnesota - will discuss how his team is using combinatorial DNA assembly strategies to interrogate and optimize refactored gene clusters. This webinar will cover key concepts in DNA assembly, discuss the importance of analyzing combinatorial libraries of genetic designs, and highlight emerging areas of research. These main points will include an example application of DNA assembly for the production of a natural product with promising pre-clinical bioactivity.

Speaker: Dr. Michael Smanski is an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota interested in developing new strategies for DNA synthesis and assembly for multiplex design of biotechnological processes. Dr. Smanski completed a postdoctoral HHMI fellowship at MIT under Christopher Voigt and his doctoral degree under Ben Shen at the Scripps Institute. Dr. Smanski is the author of over 20 research articles, 4 of which are in Nature journals.