Alice Ting is Professor of Genetics, Biology, and Chemistry (by courtesy) at Stanford University. From 2002 to 2016, she was Professor of Chemistry at MIT. Ting’s research focuses on the development of molecular technologies for probing both intracellular and intercellular networks. Her group has developed proximity labeling enzymes (APEX, TurboID), molecular integrators for calcium and GPCR activity, monovalent streptavidin, and site-specific fluorophore ligases. Born in Taiwan and raised in Texas from age 6, Ting received her undergraduate degree from Harvard in Chemistry, working with Professor E. J. Corey. She received her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley with Peter Schultz, and her postdoctoral training was at UCSD with Roger Tsien. Ting’s work has been recognized by the NIH Pioneer Award, the McKnight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award, and the ACS Arthur Cope Scholar Award, among other prizes. She is an investigator of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub.
Abstract: Optogenetic and Chemogenetic Technologies for Probing Molecular and Cellular Interactions
Molecular recorders are scalable, single cell technologies that fulfill a longstanding need in biology by creating stable records of past cellular events, simultaneously applicable across thousands of cells. The “records” can be read out by RNA sequencing, FACS, imaging, or if desired, altered cellular properties and physiology. I will describe our efforts to develop and apply molecular recorders for calcium and protein localization in living systems.
In the second part of the talk, I will describe recent improvements to and extensions of technologies for proximity labeling. Proximity labeling is catalyzed by engineered promiscuous enzymes in living cells and used for the discovery of local proteomes and transcriptomes with nanometer spatial resolution and minute temporal resolution.