Molecular Recording of Cellular Events

Dr. Seth Shipman, an Associate Professor at the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF), and his colleagues are working to solve a grand problem in biology: the fact that biological research depends on destruction of the system being investigated. His team is developing molecular devices that can log ongoing biological events in real time into a DNA record within living cells which will enable better study of complex biology such as development and cancer progression.

Biology seeks to explain how dynamic molecular events in individual cells yield coordinated activities in complex systems like tissues and organs. Unfortunately, to understand cells, scientists must destroy them. They interrupt key molecular moments by ripping open cells to collect and measure molecules (e.g. RNA) that help explain the biology happening at that instant. However, most biology is not instantaneous; interesting events unfold over long spans of time that are fundamentally incompatible with interrogation by destructive methods. Support from the Bachrach family will enable Professor Seth Shipman and his team at UCSF to solve this technical limitation. The solution requires them to ditch the big machines used to analyze molecules pulled out of cells and replace them with tiny molecular machines that can operate inside cells to gather data over time. An apt analogy is a flight data recorder or black From Box . The black From Box es they build operate within cells, logging data about ongoing molecular events, which they then retrieve after something interesting happens. They will build these machines and use them to advance our understanding of heart development and cancer progression.