Allen Institute, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the University of Washington announce the Seattle Hub for Synthetic Biology

Reimagining how we study cells by turning them into their own recording devices

The Seattle Hub for Synthetic Biology is researching and designing cutting-edge technologies that will monitor and record genomic changes in millions of cells simultaneously in real time to unveil their complete cellular histories and reveal the complete chain of events that cause healthy cells to progress into disease. Unlocking this insight has the potential to revolutionize how we diagnose and ultimately treat illnesses and will provide unprecedented clarity into how our environment shapes our fundamental biology.

The work will be deployed at the scale of the whole organism and uncover how genetic or environmental changes give rise to specific characteristics in human cells and tissues, including those involved in disease. This team is also focused on developing technology that would not only diagnose disease, but also treat it.

Research Overview

Reimagining living cells and genomes as devices for recording complex biological information over time.

Researchers at the Seattle Hub for Synthetic Biology are building cellular recording technology that records and captures live data from millions of cells responding to their environment at the scale of the whole organism. Using reverse genetics, the research goes a step further, systematically altering or perturbing genes to illuminate which genes cause which downstream changes. The work is focused on developing a research tool that could someday spawn  diagnostic or clinical tools to not just observe, but actively intervene to treat disease in real time.  Core technologies involved in this research include,  DNA Typewriter and ENGRAM, which were both developed as part of the Allen Discovery Center for Cell Lineage Tracing in Jay Shendure’s lab at UW Medicine.

“Imagine being able to put a smart watch into each of your cells to record the genome itself and everything that cell is experiencing.”

– Dr. Jay Shendure, Lead Scientific Director of the Seattle Hub for Synthetic Biology and a professor of genome sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine.