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James Collins (Boston University)
Encyclopedia
James J. Collins is an American bioengineer, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University
, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute
(HHMI) Investigator. He is one of the founders of the emerging field of synthetic biology
, and a pioneering researcher in systems biology
, having made fundamental discoveries regarding the actions of antibiotics and the emergence of resistance.
in 1987 and a doctorate in Medical Engineering from the University of Oxford
in 1990. From 1987 to 1990, he was a Rhodes Scholar. Since 1990, he has been a faculty member in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University. Currently, Collins is a William F. Warren Distinguished Professor, a University Professor
, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Co-Director of the Center for BioDynamics at Boston University. He is also a core founding faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University
and a Visiting Professor in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School
.
Collins' scientific accomplishments have been recognized by numerous awards, including the NIH Director's Pioneer Award, the Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar Award in Aging, the inaugural Anthony J. Drexel $100,000 Exceptional Achievement Award, the Lagrange Prize from the CRT Foundation in Italy, and being selected for Technology Review
's inaugural TR100
- 100 young innovators who will shape the future of technology - and the Scientific American
50 - the top 50 outstanding leaders in science and technology. He is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society
, the Institute of Physics
, and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. In 2003, he received a MacArthur Foundation
"Genius Award
", becoming the first bioengineer to receive this honor. Collins' award citation noted, "Throughout his research, Collins demonstrates a proclivity for identifying abstract principles that underlie complex biological phenomena and for using these concepts to solve concrete, practical problems.". In 2008, Collins was selected as an HHMI Investigator, becoming the first BU faculty member to be honored with this distinction. He was also honored as a Medical All-Star by the Boston Red Sox, and threw out the first pitch at a Red Sox game in Fenway Park. Collins was elected to the National Academy of Engineering
for "contributions to synthetic biology and engineered gene networks".
Collins is also a gifted and committed teacher. He has won numerous teaching awards at Boston University, including the Biomedical Engineering Teacher of the Year Award, the College of Engineering Professor of the Year Award, and the Metcalf Cup and Prize for Excellence in Teaching, which is the highest teaching honor awarded by Boston University.
Collins has been involved with a number of start-up companies, and his inventions and technologies have been licensed by several biotech and medical device companies. Collins currently chairs the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of Novophage, co-chairs the SAB of Gene Network Sciences, and serves on the SAB of Joule Unlimited, Synereca Pharmaceuticals, LifeWave Ltd and Excel Medical Ventures. Additionally, he has served on the SAB of Mannkind Corporation (Nasdaq: MNKD), Codon Devices, Epitome Biosystems and Bios Group Inc.
Collins ran track and cross country at Holy Cross (he was a 4:17 miler), and earned a blue playing for the varsity basketball team at the University of Oxford.
- modeling, designing and constructing synthetic gene networks, and systems biology
- reverse engineering naturally occurring gene regulatory networks.
Collins has invented a number of novel devices and techniques, including vibrating insoles for enhancing balance, a prokaryotic riboregulator
, bistable genetic toggle switches for biotechnology and bioenergy applications, dynamical control techniques for eliminating cardiac arrhythmias, and systems biology techniques for identifying drug targets and disease mediators.
Collins proposed that input noise could be used to enhance sensory function and motor control in humans. He and collaborators showed that touch sensation and balance control in young and older adults, patients with stroke, and patients with diabetic neuropathy could be improved with the application of sub-sensory mechanical noise, e.g., via vibrating insoles. This work has led to the creation of a new class of medical devices to address complications resulting from diabetic neuropathy, restore brain function following stroke, and improve elderly balance.
Collins has pioneered the use of techniques from nonlinear dynamics and molecular biology to model, design and construct engineered gene networks, leading to the development of the field of synthetic biology. Collins and collaborators have created genetic toggle switches, RNA switches, genetic counters, programmable cells, tunable mammalian genetic switches, and engineered bacteriophage, each with broad applications in biotechnology and biomedicine.
Collins is also one of the leading researchers in systems biology, pioneering the use of experimental-computational biophysical techniques to reverse engineer and analyze endogenous gene regulatory networks. Collins and collaborators showed that reverse-engineered gene networks can be used to identify drug targets, biological mediators and disease biomarkers.
Collins and collaborators discovered, using systems biology approaches, that all classes of bactericidal antibiotics induce a common oxidative damage cellular death pathway.
This finding indicates that targeting bacterials systems that remediate oxidative damage, including the SOS DNA damage response, is a viable means of enhancing the effectiveness of all major classes of antibiotics and limiting the emergence of antibiotic resistance. Collins and co-workers also discovered that sublethal levels of antibiotics actively mutagenesis by stimulating the production of reactive oxygen species, leading to multidrug resistance. This discovery has important implications for the widespread use and misuse of antibiotics. Recently, Collins and colleagues, using their systems approaches, discovered a population-based resistance mechanism constituting a form of kin selection whereby a small number of resistant bacterial mutants, in the face of antibiotic stress, can, at some cost to themselves, provide protection to other more vulnerable, cells, enhancing the survival capacity of the overall population in stressful environments.
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a United States non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded by the American businessman Howard Hughes in 1953. It is one of the largest private funding organizations for biological and medical research in the United...
(HHMI) Investigator. He is one of the founders of the emerging field of synthetic biology
Synthetic biology
Synthetic biology is a new area of biological research that combines science and engineering. It encompasses a variety of different approaches, methodologies, and disciplines with a variety of definitions...
, and a pioneering researcher in systems biology
Systems biology
Systems biology is a term used to describe a number of trends in bioscience research, and a movement which draws on those trends. Proponents describe systems biology as a biology-based inter-disciplinary study field that focuses on complex interactions in biological systems, claiming that it uses...
, having made fundamental discoveries regarding the actions of antibiotics and the emergence of resistance.
Biography
Collins received a bachelor's degree in Physics (summa cum laude; class valedictorian) from the College of the Holy CrossCollege of the Holy Cross
The College of the Holy Cross is an undergraduate Roman Catholic liberal arts college located in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA...
in 1987 and a doctorate in Medical Engineering from the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
in 1990. From 1987 to 1990, he was a Rhodes Scholar. Since 1990, he has been a faculty member in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University. Currently, Collins is a William F. Warren Distinguished Professor, a University Professor
University Professors Program
The University Professors Program was a program within Boston University that granted degrees in fields that combined, bridged, or fell between established intellectual disciplines. Consulting closely with faculty, students designed their own cross-disciplinary programs of study that often...
, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Co-Director of the Center for BioDynamics at Boston University. He is also a core founding faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and a Visiting Professor in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
.
Collins' scientific accomplishments have been recognized by numerous awards, including the NIH Director's Pioneer Award, the Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar Award in Aging, the inaugural Anthony J. Drexel $100,000 Exceptional Achievement Award, the Lagrange Prize from the CRT Foundation in Italy, and being selected for Technology Review
Technology Review
Technology Review is a magazine published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as "The Technology Review", and was re-launched without the "The" in its name on April 23, 1998 under then publisher R. Bruce Journey...
's inaugural TR100
TR35
The TR35 is an annual list published by MIT Technology Review magazine, naming the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35.Some of the most famous winners of the award include Larry Page and Sergey Brin , Linus Torvalds , Jerry Yang , Jonathan Ive , Mark Zuckerberg...
- 100 young innovators who will shape the future of technology - and the Scientific American
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
50 - the top 50 outstanding leaders in science and technology. He is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society
American Physical Society
The American Physical Society is the world's second largest organization of physicists, behind the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. The Society publishes more than a dozen scientific journals, including the world renowned Physical Review and Physical Review Letters, and organizes more than 20...
, the Institute of Physics
Institute of Physics
The Institute of Physics is a scientific charity devoted to increasing the practice, understanding and application of physics. It has a worldwide membership of around 40,000....
, and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. In 2003, he received a MacArthur Foundation
MacArthur Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the United States. Based in Chicago but supporting non-profit organizations that work in 60 countries, MacArthur has awarded more than US$4 billion since its inception in 1978...
"Genius Award
MacArthur Fellows Program
The MacArthur Fellows Program or MacArthur Fellowship is an award given by the John D. and Catherine T...
", becoming the first bioengineer to receive this honor. Collins' award citation noted, "Throughout his research, Collins demonstrates a proclivity for identifying abstract principles that underlie complex biological phenomena and for using these concepts to solve concrete, practical problems.". In 2008, Collins was selected as an HHMI Investigator, becoming the first BU faculty member to be honored with this distinction. He was also honored as a Medical All-Star by the Boston Red Sox, and threw out the first pitch at a Red Sox game in Fenway Park. Collins was elected to the National Academy of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
for "contributions to synthetic biology and engineered gene networks".
Collins is also a gifted and committed teacher. He has won numerous teaching awards at Boston University, including the Biomedical Engineering Teacher of the Year Award, the College of Engineering Professor of the Year Award, and the Metcalf Cup and Prize for Excellence in Teaching, which is the highest teaching honor awarded by Boston University.
Collins has been involved with a number of start-up companies, and his inventions and technologies have been licensed by several biotech and medical device companies. Collins currently chairs the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of Novophage, co-chairs the SAB of Gene Network Sciences, and serves on the SAB of Joule Unlimited, Synereca Pharmaceuticals, LifeWave Ltd and Excel Medical Ventures. Additionally, he has served on the SAB of Mannkind Corporation (Nasdaq: MNKD), Codon Devices, Epitome Biosystems and Bios Group Inc.
Collins ran track and cross country at Holy Cross (he was a 4:17 miler), and earned a blue playing for the varsity basketball team at the University of Oxford.
Work
Collins has pioneered the development and use of nonlinear dynamical approaches to study, mimic and improve biological function, and helped to transform biology into an engineering science. His current research interests include: synthetic biologySynthetic biology
Synthetic biology is a new area of biological research that combines science and engineering. It encompasses a variety of different approaches, methodologies, and disciplines with a variety of definitions...
- modeling, designing and constructing synthetic gene networks, and systems biology
Systems biology
Systems biology is a term used to describe a number of trends in bioscience research, and a movement which draws on those trends. Proponents describe systems biology as a biology-based inter-disciplinary study field that focuses on complex interactions in biological systems, claiming that it uses...
- reverse engineering naturally occurring gene regulatory networks.
Collins has invented a number of novel devices and techniques, including vibrating insoles for enhancing balance, a prokaryotic riboregulator
Riboregulator
In molecular biology, a riboregulator is a ribonucleic acid that responds to a signal nucleic acid molecule by Watson-Crick base pairing. A riboregulator may respond to a signal molecule in any number of manners including, translation of the RNA into a protein, activation of a ribozyme, release...
, bistable genetic toggle switches for biotechnology and bioenergy applications, dynamical control techniques for eliminating cardiac arrhythmias, and systems biology techniques for identifying drug targets and disease mediators.
Collins proposed that input noise could be used to enhance sensory function and motor control in humans. He and collaborators showed that touch sensation and balance control in young and older adults, patients with stroke, and patients with diabetic neuropathy could be improved with the application of sub-sensory mechanical noise, e.g., via vibrating insoles. This work has led to the creation of a new class of medical devices to address complications resulting from diabetic neuropathy, restore brain function following stroke, and improve elderly balance.
Collins has pioneered the use of techniques from nonlinear dynamics and molecular biology to model, design and construct engineered gene networks, leading to the development of the field of synthetic biology. Collins and collaborators have created genetic toggle switches, RNA switches, genetic counters, programmable cells, tunable mammalian genetic switches, and engineered bacteriophage, each with broad applications in biotechnology and biomedicine.
Collins is also one of the leading researchers in systems biology, pioneering the use of experimental-computational biophysical techniques to reverse engineer and analyze endogenous gene regulatory networks. Collins and collaborators showed that reverse-engineered gene networks can be used to identify drug targets, biological mediators and disease biomarkers.
Collins and collaborators discovered, using systems biology approaches, that all classes of bactericidal antibiotics induce a common oxidative damage cellular death pathway.
This finding indicates that targeting bacterials systems that remediate oxidative damage, including the SOS DNA damage response, is a viable means of enhancing the effectiveness of all major classes of antibiotics and limiting the emergence of antibiotic resistance. Collins and co-workers also discovered that sublethal levels of antibiotics actively mutagenesis by stimulating the production of reactive oxygen species, leading to multidrug resistance. This discovery has important implications for the widespread use and misuse of antibiotics. Recently, Collins and colleagues, using their systems approaches, discovered a population-based resistance mechanism constituting a form of kin selection whereby a small number of resistant bacterial mutants, in the face of antibiotic stress, can, at some cost to themselves, provide protection to other more vulnerable, cells, enhancing the survival capacity of the overall population in stressful environments.