Process automation: Synthetic biology applies engineering principles to construct artificial biosystems with predictable functions. Lacking design rules, it remains slow, expensive and inconsistent. Our group aims to develop robotic foundries to accelerate the design-build-test-learn cycles for engineering biology. We envision living organisms to be rationally designed and robotically manufactured, the way humans create other artifacts.

Biomolecular engineering: Biology is fascinatingly complex. We push the limit of synthetic and analytical throughput to study natural and engineered microbial diversity, with the goal of understanding and reprogramming biochemistry for industrial and biomedical applications.

B.S., Chemistry & Biology, Tsinghua University, July 2009

Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, UIUC, December 2014

Professor, Institute of Synthetic Biology, SIAT, CAS, 2019-date

Postdoctoral Research Associate, UIUC, 2014-2019

[1] Tong Si, et al. Rapid screening of lanthipeptide analogs via in-colony removal of leader peptides in Escherichia coli. Journal of the American Chemical Society. 140 (2018): 11884-11888

[2] Tong Si, et al. Automated multiplex genome-scale engineering in yeast. Nature Communications. 8(2017): 15187

[3] Tong Si, et al. Profiling of microbial colonies for high-throughput engineering of multistep enzymatic reactions via optically guided matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry. Journal of the American Chemical Society. 139(2017): 12466-12473

[4] Ran Chao, Shekhar Mishra, Tong Si, et al. Engineering biological systems using automated biofoundries. Metabolic Engineering. 42(2017): 98-108

[5] Ran Chao, Jing Liang, Ipek Tasan, Tong Si, et al. Fully automated one-step synthesis of single-transcript TALEN pairs using a biological foundry. ACS Synthetic Biology. 6(2017): 678-685

Process automation: Synthetic biology applies engineering principles to construct artificial biosystems with predictable functions. Lacking design rules, it remains slow, expensive and inconsistent. Our group aims to develop robotic foundries to accelerate the design-build-test-learn cycles for engineering biology. We envision living organisms to be rationally designed and robotically manufactured, the way humans create other artifacts.

Biomolecular engineering: Biology is fascinatingly complex. We push the limit of synthetic and analytical throughput to study natural and engineered microbial diversity, with the goal of understanding and reprogramming biochemistry for industrial and biomedical applications.

现指导学生

付立豪  博士研究生  071005-微生物学  

倪浩然  硕士研究生  086000-生物与医药