Michael B. Elowitz is a

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

and professor of Biology, Bioengineering, and Applied Physics at the California Institute of Technology, and investigator at the

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, fil ...

. In 2007 he was the recipient of the Genius grant, better known as the

MacArthur Fellows Program The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 ind ...

for the design of a synthetic gene regulatory network, the

Repressilator The repressilator is a genetic regulatory network consisting of at least one feedback loop with at least three genes, each expressing a protein that represses the next gene in the loop. In biological research, repressilators have been used to build ...

, which helped initiate the field of synthetic biology. In addition, he showed, for the first time, how inherently random effects, or 'noise', in gene expression could be detected and quantified in living cells, leading to a growing recognition of the many roles that noise plays in living cells. His work in Synthetic Biology and Noise represent two foundations of the field of Systems Biology.

Career

His laboratory studies the dynamics of genetic circuits in individual living cells using synthetic biology, time-lapse microscopy, and mathematical modeling, with a particular focus on the way in which cells make use of noise to implement behaviors that would be difficult or impossible without it. Recently, his lab has expanded their approaches beyond bacteria to include eukaryotic and mammalian cells.

Life

Elowitz grew up in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, where he attended the humanities magnet at Alexander Hamilton High School (Los Angeles). He studied Physics and graduated with a B.A. from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1992, and from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

with a Ph.D. in 1999. In 1997–1998, he spent one year at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory at Heidelberg. Afterwards, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University in New York City. While working as a

graduate student Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree. The organization and stru ...

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

he co-authored songs such as ''Sunday at the Lab'' with

Uri Alon Uri Alon (Hebrew: אורי אלון; born 1969) is a Professor and Systems Biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science. His highly cited research investigates gene expression, network motifs and the design principles of biological networks in ...

Awards

* 2022 Elected to the National Academy of Sciences * 201
Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in Biophysics
* 2015 Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences * 2011 HFSP Nakasone Award * 2008 Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering * 2008 Discover Magazine "Top 20 under 40" * 2007

* 2006 Packard Fellow * 2004 Technology Review TR100 List of Top Innovators * 2003 Burroughs Welcome Fund Interfaces award

Peer-reviewed publications

*Li P, Markson JS, Wang S, Chen S, Vachharajan V, Elowitz MB, "Morphogen gradient reconstitution reveals Hedgehog pathway design principles," ''Science'' (2018). *Bintu L, Yong J, Antebi YE, McCue K, Kazuki Y, Uno N, Oshimura M, Elowitz MB, "Dynamics of epigenetic regulation at the single-cell level," ''Science'' (2016). *Lin Y, Sohn CH, Dalal CK, Cai L, Elowitz MB, Combinatorial gene regulation by modulation of relative pulse timing, ''Nature,'' 2015 * * * * * * * * * * *

References

External links

"Hacking DNA", ''IEEE Spectrum'', Paul McFedries, October 2009"Michael B Elowitz", ''Scientific Commons''"Michael Elowitz", ''Science blog''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elowitz, Michael 21st-century American biologists MacArthur Fellows California Institute of Technology faculty Howard Hughes Medical Investigators Living people Year of birth missing (living people) University of California, Berkeley alumni Princeton University alumni Synthetic biologists Systems biologists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers