The Lab

The Control Theory and Systems Biology Laboratory is led by Professor Mustafa Khammash. Our group works at the interface of systems biology, synthetic biology, and control theory.

Our team combines engineers, mathematicians, computational scientists, physicists, and biologists. Our theoretical and computational studies of biosystems is complemented by experimental studies. Our group runs an experimental biology laboratory equipped for biosafety level I microbiology and molecular biology work and has access to the D-BSSE departments extensive facilities including the Single Cell Facility, Quantitative Genomics Facility, the Laboratory Automation Facility, and the Center for Information Sciences and Databases.

We are:

  • developing the theoretical and experimental foundations for Cybergenetics, a term we use to refer to a new research program whose goal is the design and engineering of control systems for steering the spatio-temporal dynamics of living cells and tissues, with applications in basic science, medical and industrial biotechnology.
  • creating novel theoretical and computational methods for the modeling, simulation, analysis, and control of biological networks, with a focus on stochastic systems.
  • utilizing our theory and methods in various biological applications, with particular interest in reverse engineering biological complexity.
  • leveraging our methods for forward engineering novel synthetic biological circuits.
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