Professor Xiongfei Fu: Looking for the Laws of the Biological World and Developing Life Design Tools

A box of "Lego" bricks can be assembled into a series of structures with different functions. Today, in the field of synthetic biology, as small as microorganisms, as large as plants and even animals, synthetic biologists also use "modular" methods to assemble life bodies like Lego. The assistant director of the Institute of Synthetic Biology, Xiongfei Fu is a "cross-border player."

In a synthetic biology team with a highly cross-disciplinary background, Xiongfei Fu  combines mathematical models with quantitative experiments to study basic problems in biological systems. He hopes to find simple rules of the biological world from them, and use these rules to develop computer-aided design tools to help synthetic biology engineering "draw" more complex "drawings" and build more powerful life forms.

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In the 3 years since joining SIAT, Xiongfei Fu has engaged in basic research that is biased towards applications. He has transformed microorganisms to treat oil pollution in the ocean and soil. He has also led the research team to use synthetic biology to reveal the coordination mechanism of bacterial population migration.

This year, Xiongfei Fu's research once again has a new direction. He will be the project leader of the "High Version Model Microbial Chassis Cells" young scientist in the national key R & D program, studying the principles of resource allocation between synthetic circuits and chassis cells, and the laws of dynamic interaction,  understanding the adaptive design principles of synthetic circuits, and promoting the rational design of synthetic biology.

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