Connector: Foundations of Biological Design

About this event

Advances in biology, engineering, computation, and data science are increasingly allowing researchers not only to understand living systems, but also to predict, modify, and design biological functions. These capabilities are opening new possibilities in areas such as health, agriculture, materials, manufacturing, environmental resilience, and biotechnology.

Foundations of Biological Design encompasses work across many scales—from molecules and genes to cells, organisms, communities, and ecosystems—and brings together approaches from fundamental biology, bioengineering, synthetic biology, computation, sensing, modeling, and design.

NSF Frontiers Connector: Foundations of Biological Design will bring together researchers approaching biological systems from different perspectives, including those seeking to understand how they function, those developing tools to measure or manipulate them, and those exploring how biological principles or capabilities might be used to solve problems in other fields.

Who should attend?

Consider attending if your research involves—or could connect with—molecular and cellular biology, genetics and genomics, synthetic biology, bioengineering, biochemistry, microbiology, neuroscience, computational biology, systems biology, ecology, plant and animal biology, biomaterials, biosensing, or biotechnology.

The Connector is also intended for researchers outside the biological sciences whose expertise could contribute to biological design—including computation and AI, engineering, chemistry, physics, materials science, mathematics, environmental science, design, and other fields. You do not need to work primarily in biology to participate; the goal is to bring together different kinds of expertise that could help us better understand, use, or design biological systems.

Upon completing the registration form, users will receive an email confirmation and a calendar invite.