The Department of Chemical and Systems Biology Presents

Jared E. Toettcher, PhD
Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology
Princeton University

“Signaling, illuminated: Moving proteins and assembling organelles to crack the signaling code”

Every cell exists in a complex and changing environment, yet we are still largely in the dark about how external information is stored in patterns of protein activity, and how this information is decoded into specific cell fate decisions. I will talk about our efforts to overcome these challenges using cellular optogenetics: the delivery of precise spatial and temporal activity patterns to a specific signaling protein of interest. I will highlight our work to optically control cell fates during embryogenesis and to map how complex dynamics are interpreted in mammalian tissues.

Reading Material: 

1. Signaling Dynamics Control Cell Fate in the Early Drosophila Embryo. Dine, Toettcher et al., 2018, Cell Systems 6, 655–663 June 27, 2018 ª 2018 Elsevier Inc. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cels.2018.05.002
2. Protein Phase Separation Provides Long-Term Memory of Transient Spatial Stimuli. Johnson & Toettcher, 2019, Developmental Cell 48, 361–370 February 11, 2019 ª 2019 Elsevier Inc. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2019.01.009

Review Paper: At Light Speed: Advances in Optogenetic Systems for Regulating Cell Signaling and Behavior (https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-chembioeng-060816-101254).