Irene Otero-Muras, CSIC Senior Scientist at the Institute of Integrative Systems Biology I2SysBio (CSIC-Universitat de València) will lead a Consolidator ERC project to develop new methods in synthetic biology that will allow programming cognitive capabilities in microorganisms with potential applications in bioremediation and human health. The project, endowed with two million euros, has a duration of five years.
Irene Otero-Muras will develop the CellWise project to apply new mathematical and computational methods to synthetic biology. This discipline aims to design or redesign biological systems (cells or microorganisms) and give them new qualities. It is the basis for new techniques to produce compounds sustainably in cell factories, decontaminate by means of bacteria that degrade plastics or therapies such as CAR-T cells against certain types of cancer.
CellWise aims to increase the accuracy, predictive capacity and robustness of synthetic biology by integrating mathematical models and artificial intelligence techniques. Specifically, it will address the challenge of programming cognitive capabilities in microorganisms such as bacteria and yeast to control the response of cells to certain stimuli and which are the basis of phenomena such as antibiotic resistance or cellular aging.
“Cellular aging is a complex process that includes irreversible factors and others that can be reversed, such as the organism's response to certain stimuli,” explains Irene Otero-Muras. “Understanding these mechanisms will allow us to reprogram this response,” says the CSIC scientist. Her research group in Computational Synthetic Biology at I2SysBio will develop libraries of bacteria and yeast with cognitive capacities, such as memory and decision-making, to demonstrate that these capacities can be reprogrammed using synthetic biology techniques.
Irene Otero-Muras is a chemical engineer with a PhD in applied mathematics. Since 2021 she is a CSIC full scientist at I2SysBio, where she leads the Computational Synthetic Biology group. Her research in the design, analysis and control of molecular biocircuits aims to advance both fundamental knowledge and innovative applications in systems biology and synthetic biology. She currently leads together with other Valencian research groups the València Biofoundry initiative to contribute to the implementation of sustainable bioproduction processes in the community. She is coordinator of the Spanish node of IBISBA, the European platform for Industrial Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology.
