Dr. Ron Weiss, Ph.D, Professor of Biological Engineering, MIT - Synthetic Biology's Third Wave

Synthetic biology is a multidisciplinary area of research that seeks to create new biological parts, devices, and systems, or to redesign systems that are already found in nature.


Synthetic biology is a branch of science that encompasses a broad range of methodologies from various disciplines, such as biotechnology, genetic engineering, molecular biology, molecular engineering, systems biology, membrane science, biophysics, chemical and biological engineering, electrical and computer engineering, control engineering and evolutionary biology.


Dr. Ron Weiss, Ph.D, is Professor of Biological Engineering, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).


Prof. Dr. Weiss is one of the pioneers of synthetic biology and he has been engaged in this domain of research since 1996 when he was a graduate student at MIT and where he helped set up a wet-lab in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. After completion of his Ph.D, Dr. Weiss joined the faculty at Princeton University, and recently returned to MIT to take on a tenured faculty position in the Department of Biological Engineering and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.


There are many fascinating programs going on in the Weiss lab, such as the construction of synthetic gene networks to help improve understanding of the naturally existing regulatory functions within cells and which can enable a wide range of novel programmed cells applications, including Micro-bio-robotic communication, in-vivo biosensors, and novel organoid production.