Christopher Voigt

Christopher A. Voigt
Born	Ann Arbor, Michigan
Citizenship	U.S.
Nationality	U.S.
Fields	Synthetic Biology
Institutions	University of California - San Francisco
Alma mater	University of Michigan, California Institute of Technology, University of California - Berkeley
Doctoral advisor	Zhen-Gang Wang, Frances Arnold, Stephen Mayo, Adam P Arkin

Christopher Voigt is an American synthetic biologist, molecular biophysicist, and engineer. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Pharmaceutical Chemistry department of the University of California - San Francisco with appointments in the Biophysics and the Chemistry and Chemical Biology graduate student programs. His research interests focus on the reprogramming of bacterial organisms to perform coordinated, complex tasks for pharmaceutical and industrial applications. He is a member of the National Science Foundation-funded Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center, called SynBERC, and works in the developing field of synthetic biology. His recent works include:

• Engineering a bacterial two-component system to regulate gene expression in response to red light.^[1]

• Engineering bacteria to sense its environment and conditionally invade cancer cells either when the concentration of bacteria is large enough, when the environment has little oxygen (e.g. inside a tumor), or when a specific chemical is present.^[2]

• Constructing a logical AND gate inside bacteria.^[3]

Current research projects use these new environmental sensors and logical switches to control the assembly and function of newly redesigned systems, such as a secretion needle that exports spider silk proteins or a photosynthetic apparatus responsible for converting light into chemical energy.

In 2006, he was named to the MIT Technology Review TR35 as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35.^[4]

External links

• Chris Voigt Research Lab Website

References

1. ^ Levskaya A, Chevalier AA, Tabor JJ, Simpson ZB, Lavery LA, Levy M, Davidson EA, Scouras A, Ellington AD, Marcotte EM, Voigt CA (2005). "Synthetic biology: engineering Escherichia coli to see light". Nature 438 (7067): 441–2. doi:10.1038/nature04405. PMID 16306980. 
2. ^ Anderson JC, Clarke EJ, Arkin AP, Voigt CA (2006). "Environmentally controlled invasion of cancer cells by engineered bacteria". J. Mol. Biol. 355 (4): 619–27. doi:10.1016/j.jmb.2005.10.076. PMID 16330045. 
3. ^ Anderson JC, Voigt CA, Arkin AP (2007). "Environmental signal integration by a modular AND gate". Mol. Syst. Biol. 3 (1): 133. doi:10.1038/msb4100173. PMC 1964800. PMID 17700541. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1964800. 
4. ^ "2006 Young Innovators Under 35". Technology Review. 2006. http://www.technologyreview.com/tr35/?year=2006. Retrieved August 15, 2011.