Designed by Biology

Hello viewers, I'm a Biologist working in the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University and the Wyss Institute at Harvard University.  The main focus of my recent research is the creation of living biological robots - first designed by a computer and then built from amphibian stem cells.  These reconfigurable organisms have opened a whole new field of study, allowing us to move between simulated (in silico) and biological (in vivo) worlds and answer a number of fundamental questions about stem cell development, cellular communication, tissue plasticity, and self-assembly.