Dr. Meriem Rezgaoui
Photo: UHH-Rezgaoui
Design and implementation of molecular circuits applied towards molecular diagnosis
Electronic computing devices perform binary calculations from signals processed by multi-layered logic gates. Similarly, molecular devices can emulate the digital circuits behaviour: where specific molecules or environmental/cellular signals act as input signals, and thus the processing can control certain cellular activities, such as the production of a target protein as output signal. Molecular circuits offer exciting possibilities to be explored, especially in developments towards semi-autonomous diagnosis and/or therapy of some diseases. My project aims to study the feasibility of designing and building multilayered (i.e. both at transcriptional and posttranscriptional levels) tunable (i.e. dynamically regulated by a network of transcription factors and sRNAs) molecular devices that can work as building blocks for more complex circuits. Our ultimate goal is building molecular circuits towards mitigation of genetic diseases, for example cystic fibrosis.