James J. Collins

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
James Collins (2009)

James Joseph "Jim" Collins (born June 26, 1965 in New York City ) is an American medical and bio engineer.

Collins graduated from the College of the Holy Cross with a bachelor's degree in physics in 1987 (top of his university) and received his doctorate in medical engineering from the University of Oxford in 1990 . He then became an assistant professor and later professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University . He is now William F. Warren Distinguished Professor and Professor of Medicine and co-founder and co-director of the Center for Synthetic Biology. In 2008 he also became a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute .

Collins is a pioneer in synthetic biology and systems biology. He found ways to reprogram bacteria (and bacteriophages, for example) so that they perform specified tasks. He constructed gene networks in cells, genetic switches, RNA switches, genetic counters, riboregulators .

Using these methods, he identified an oxidative damage mechanism in bacteria common to all antibiotics, which showed a way to increase the effect of these antibiotics by targeting the corresponding repair mechanisms in the bacterial cell. He also found that the free radical mutations with non-lethal antibiotic doses promoted antibiotic resistance.

He also carried out fundamental work on dynamic systems theory in biology. He showed that noise can increase sensor perception. As an application, he developed special soles that stimulate the feet, for example to help older people maintain their balance.

He received a Pioneer Award from the Director of the National Institutes of Health and a 2003 MacArthur Fellowship . He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering , the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, and the National Academy of Inventors . He is also a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Institute of Physics . In 2014 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and received the HFSP Nakasone Award . For 2017 he was awarded the Gabbay Award , for 2020 the Max Delbruck Prize of the American Physical Society and the Dickson Prize in Medicine of the University of Pittsburgh .

Collins is a scientific advisor to various companies that produce his inventions.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
  2. ↑ TS Gardner, CR Cantor, JJ Collins Construction of a genetic toggle switch in Escherichia coli , Nature 403, 2000, pp. 339-342
  3. ↑ FJ Isaacs, DJ Dwyer, C. Ding, DD Pervouchine, CR Cantor, JJ Collins Engineered riboregulators enable post-transcriptional control of gene expression , Nat Biotechnol 22, 2004, pp. 823-824
  4. ↑ MA Kohanski, DJ Dwyer, B. Hayete, CA Lawrence, JJ Collins A common mechanism of cellular death induced by bactericidal antibiotics , Cell 130, 2007, pp. 797-810
  5. ↑ MA Kohanski, MA DePristo, JJ Collins sublethal antibiotic treatment leads to multidrug resistance via radical-induced mutagenesis , Molecular Cell 37, 2010, pp 311-320
  6. ↑ A. Priplata, J. Niemi, J. Harry, LA Lipsitz, JJ Collins Vibrating insoles and balance control in elderly people , The Lancet 362, 2003, pp 1123-1124
  7. ^ National Academy of Sciences Members and Foreign Associates Elected. ( Memento of the original from August 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Press release from the National Academy of Sciences (nasonline.org) dated April 29, 2014  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nasonline.org
personal data
SURNAME Collins, James J.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Collins, James Joseph; Collins, Jim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American medical engineer
DATE OF BIRTH June 26, 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City