Arvi Jõers
Biological Matter Engineering Laboratory
Living things can take a myriad of different forms, from tiny bacterium to a giant oak tree. Yet, at the molecular level, they are all similar, consisting of DNA, proteins and other biomolecules. Over the last 70 years molecular biologists have discovered a great deal about how living organisms are built, how they function and multiply. Time has come now to take a step further and start to engineer new properties into cells. The time of synthetic biology has arrived.
We at the Biological Matter Engineering Laboratory are working with Escherichia coli and try to teach this old dog some new tricks. Can we make it stop growing and dedicate all its energy to produce something useful? Is it possible to force it to grow into elaborate patterns? Can we introduce a terminal differentiation state? We do not know the answers yet, but we are working on it.
Our lab got started in 2019, so everything is fresh and new. So far there are 4 of us:
Arvi Jõers, PhD, Senior Research Fellow, group leader. Marje Kasari, PhD, Research Fellow. Villu Kasari, PhD, Research Fellow. Koit Kõrgnurm, undergraduate. |
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We are looking for new people and collaborations, so if you are interested in synthetic biology, please give us a call or send an e-mail.
Tel: +372 737 5041
arvi.joers [ät] ut.ee
Industry collaboration
FastMicro project with TFTAK
There are hundreds of different microbes in the human gut. Many could be useful as probiotics, but growing them in larger amounts is technically difficult. Most of these microbes are obligate anaerobes and do not tolerate oxygen. During this project we will develop a platform technology for growth medium optimization for anaerobic bacteria. This technology speeds up the discovery process and paves the way for the next generation probiotics.