Advanced Research Fellowship: Linking the physical and biological sciences to study cell to cell interactions

细胞间的相互作用是所有生物过程的基础。对细胞-细胞相互作用的理解，以及利用这种新知识进行未来生物过程工程的最终愿景，跨越医学，过程工程和环境学科。对细胞间相互作用的观察并不是一个新现象。然而，尽管细胞-细胞相互作用在生物工程系统中的普遍存在和重要性，但人们对分子水平上的过程（即科学方法）如何与宏观尺度特征（即工程问题）联系起来知之甚少。为了理解并最终设计和模拟细胞-细胞相互作用的过程，需要同时解决关键（和相互依赖的）（过程）工程，围绕细胞-细胞相互作用的生物和生化问题的综合方法。发展这样一个综合框架是这项研究的核心理念。凭借我的专业知识和这个奖学金的机会，我处于独特的地位，可以将物理/化学工程和生物科学的技能运用到这个生物工程问题上。该奖学金的核心优势是我将生物“组学”技术与工程和胶体研究相结合，将控制细胞间相互作用的生物和物理过程联系起来的能力。使用模型细菌系统（大肠杆菌和蜡样芽孢杆菌），我将研究外部驱动因素（例如细胞间通信）如何影响细胞表面特征并最终影响细胞间相互作用。我将把这项研究扩展到古细菌和真核生物系统，以获得细胞间相互作用的更全面的观点。这一奖学金是及时的，因为它将开辟新的研究机会，与专门研究细胞-细胞相互作用的各个关键方面的研究小组建立国际网络。这将为将这种综合方法应用于新的蜂窝系统提供极好的机会。这也是及时的，因为随着生物科学在将基因表达与蛋白质功能联系起来方面的持续发展，现在有可能开始将生物功能与特定的物理细胞特性和工程相关性联系起来。因此，在本奖学金中发展的知识将为揭示研究细胞间相互作用的相互关联的工程、生物和物理过程提供必要的基本理解，并最终导致管理这些过程的创新方法。

Cellular interactions are fundamental to all biological processes. Understanding of cell-cell interactions, with the ultimate vision of harnessing this new knowledge for future engineering of bioprocesses, crosses medical, process engineering and environmental disciplines. The observation of cell-cell interactions is not a new phenomenon. However, despite the prevalence and significance of cell-cell interaction in bio-engineering systems, little is understood about how the processes at the molecular level (i.e. the science approach) connect to macro scale characteristics (i.e. the engineering problem. In order to understand, and ultimately engineer and model the process of cell-cell interactions, a combined approach that concurrently addresses the key (and interdependent) (process) engineering, biological and biochemical questions surrounding cell-cell interactions is needed. The development of such an integrated framework is the core philosophy of this fellowship. With my expertise, and the opportunity of this fellowship, I am uniquely placed to bring skills from both the physical/chemical engineering and biological sciences to bear on this bio-engineering issue. A core strength of this fellowship, is my ability to combine biological '-omic' techniques with engineering and colloidal investigations to link biological and physical processes that govern cell to cell interactions Using model bacterial systems (E.coli and B.cereus), I will examine how external drivers (e.g. cell to cell communication) influence cell surface characteristics and ultimately cell to cell interaction. I will extend this study into the archaeal and eukaryotic systems to gain a more holistic view of cell to cell interactions. This fellowhsip is timely, as it will open up new research opportunities to establish international networks with research groups specialising in individual key aspects of cell-cell interactions. This will provide excellent opportunities to apply this integrated approach to new cellular systems. It is also timely because, with the continued development in the biological sciences in relating gene expression to protein function, it is now possible to start relating biological function with specific physical cell characteristics and engineering relevance. The knowledge developed in this fellowship will, as a result, provide the fundamental understanding necessary to unravel the interconnected engineering, biological and physical processes in studying cell to cell interactions, and ultimately lead to innovative ways to manage the processes.