ChEMS Seminar

 

Featuring Dr. Qihui Shi, Postdoctoral Fellow, California Institute of Technology

Abstract:

Advances in biology have enabled researchers to define disease at the molecular level and view disease as a consequence of something perturbing (genetically or environmentally) the network's normal programmed patterns of information. The systems approaches to biology promise to profile network alternations associated with particular diseases for early disease identification, patient stratification and personalized treatment. We have developed single-cell proteomic chips (SCPCs) to quantitatively assay multiple signaling proteins in tumor signal transduction networks with single cell precision. The SCPC platform allows for hundreds of parallel experiments to be carried out on a single chip, with each experiment involving the measurement of tens of intracellular signaling proteins at the single- or few-cell level. Single cell analysis uniquely reveals cellular heterogeneity of the protein levels and different types of protein-protein interactions. This platform provides a comprehensive picture of altered signal transduction networks in tumor cells, and on the effect of targeted therapies on protein signaling networks, which can potentially guide more effective cancer treatment.

Biographical Sketch:

Dr. Shi received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) in 2008 where his research in Prof. Galen Stucky’s group was focused on synthesis and characterization of inorganic nanomaterials and polymers. After graduation, he joined Prof. James Heath’s group at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) as a postdoctoral fellow. His research interests are centered on exploiting systems biology principles to develop micro- and nano-biotechnologies that will be used in basic biological research and in clinic for differential diagnosis and personalized treatment.