Roee Amit, PhD, Professor

The lab of Prof. Amit is the Synthetic Biology laboratory for the decipherment of genomic codes.

Our Goal - The genome harbors multiple codes. The genetic code was just the first one to be discovered. In order to decipher and decode the genome, we need to establish a Biological Rosetta stone. Our research is dedicated to achieving this goal.
Approach - We begin with a model-based design of DNA sequences, followed by synthetic biology experiments, and analysis using advanced bioinformatic, thermodynamic, and stochastic models. The results of the experiments and analysis provide feedback to the design model, which then generates an improved set of sequences. This process is repeated until a robust model for the encoding rules is generated.
Methodology - We design and construct oligo libraries of tens of thousands of synthetic DNA sequences using various numerical approaches.
We use state-of-the-art liquid automated robotics, next generation sequencing and time-lapse imaging to carry out our measurements. We carry out our experiments in vivo in a host of model cell lines: bacteria, yeast, mammalian cell lines