By Rowan Dunbar, C2ST Intern, University of Illinois Chicago

I remember sitting down a few years ago to write what was the most important essay of my life – my personal statement for college. With just 500 words, I recounted how my life experiences had led to my interest in biomedical engineering, particularly how engineering solutions have the potential to address barriers to quality healthcare for marginalized communities. However, throughout my time in college, I stumbled upon the fact that many treatments never reach the people who could benefit the most from it, and this is something many engineers do not expect or account for. That is why it stood out to me when I heard Dr. Joshua Leonard speak about access to treatment at Northwestern University this past summer. I decided to interview Dr. Leonard to dig deeper.

Joshua Leonard, PhD is a chemical engineer and a professor in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department at Northwestern University. His lab does research in biotechnology, specifically synthetic biology. Dr. Leonard is also the director of Northwestern’s Biotechnology Training Program. 

 

What is Synthetic Biology? What Does the Leonard Lab Do?

According to Dr. Leonard, synthetic biology has both a functional and historical definition. Here are the highlights:

• Synthetic biology is an engineering discipline that involves biology.
• Synthetic biology is similar to synthetic chemistry. Synthetic chemistry is when chemistry is used to make new molecules.
  • Synthetic biology was born out of metabolic engineering, metabolic engineering was the first time engineers used biology to make new things like molecules. 
• Synthetic biology is the next wave of bioengineering. 

Leonard Lab focuses on cellular devices, which can be anything from sensors inside the body to genetic circuits, which can be used to control individual cells and have them complete specific tasks. However, his lab could not do this work without mathematical models!

 

What is Modeling and Why is it Important?

A mathematical model is an equation, or a set of equations, that represents the complex behavior of a real-world system. Mathematical models can represent chemical reactions that occur in your body, like metabolism or how our cells break down food for energy! Mathematical models are fundamental to understanding chemistry, biology, and genetics, and can be used to create genetic circuits.

While models can represent the complex reactions in our bodies, they are often based on a researcher’s intuition. This means that a researcher will use what they already know about biology to try to create a model, but this approach has one major limitation – there are simply too many possibilities! Dr. Leonard says that, “Sometimes the most useful thing your model can do is tell you that your idea will NOT give you the behavior you want…” because this allows researchers to spend their time and effort on better ideas.

Currently, modeling in synthetic biology is done through a design, build, test, learn (DBTL) model, while the first round of DBTL may be little more than a fancy way of saying “guess and check”, this process allows engineers to get better designs as the process goes on and they learn from their mistakes. This process is time-consuming for researchers. That is why Dr. Leonard’s lab is working on a technology called Genetic Programming Computer Aided Design or GCAD. This program would allow researchers to tell GCAD what they want the model to do, would then run through possibilities, and return the one that is the closest to what the researcher asked for. It is worth noting that other fields already successfully use mathematical modeling to speed up drug development!  Quantitative Systems Pharmacology (QSP) is used to model how new medicines may work in the body, and can get treatments to patients faster. QSP allows researchers to speed up the process by avoiding the time-consuming process associated with early clinical trials. GCAD could be the synthetic biology equivalent to QSP, and ultimately has the potential to make treatment development more efficient.

 

Efficiency and Access in the Biotechnology Industry

Dr. Leonard’s efforts to make technology more efficient for researchers don’t end there, as a cofounder of the start-up Syenex, he makes better gene delivery technologies more accessible to researchers. 

Syenex was founded in 2022 with the mission to make the field of biotechnology more accessible and efficient to developers. Syenex was founded because he saw an industry gap in biotechnology. During my interview with him, Dr. Leonard explained that this company was created because he believes that science should be motivated by what provides the “biggest, positive impact” on people, and this sentiment is echoed by funding organizations like the National Institute of Health (NIH); however due to the high cost of research in the biotechnology industry, it was not feasible for companies to pursue what could create the “biggest, positive impact”. By creating more effective tools at a more affordable cost to developers, cutting down both time and cost, Syenex aims to close this gap between feasibility and the greater good – ultimately leading to the potential for more innovative treatments.

 

So What?

This fundamental shift in the biotechnology industry could also result in new benefits for patients as historical barriers are removed:

Benefit: More affordable and better treatments for patients.

Historical barrier to this: The high cost of research or startup costs slowed innovation and made it unaffordable and inaccessible to many.

Benefit: More research and development into rare diseases.

Historical barrier to this: Companies or researchers have faced barriers to studying or developing treatments for rare diseases due to factors like high cost and small patient populations, which make it difficult to raise shareholder support and validate treatments and studies. 

 

Conclusion

To wrap all of this up, Dr. Leonard’s work goes to show that when done with access in mind, engineers can use their technical skills to advance human health and the greater good. By centering access to technology for developers and other researchers, he creates a future in which patients could see increased access and affordability to novel treatments.