Filippo Menolascina, Ph.D. - "Alexa: get me a model of my cells! Optimal Experiment Design for biological systems identification"

Filippo Menolascina, Ph.D.

Professor at the University of Edinburgh
Director of Research at the Bayes Centre, the University's Innovation Hub for Artificial Intelligence

Short CV

Abstract
In this talk, I will present a computational and experimental framework to automate modelling in synthetic biology. Leveraging principles from System Identification, Real-Time Control, Optimal Experimental Design and in vivo experiments in microfluidics, I will show how we achieved automatic model selection and model calibration in both a frequentist and Bayesian framework in E. coli and S. cerevisiae. Given a set experimental budget (e.g., experiment hours), our results show that online Optimal Experimental Design can reduce parameter estimation errors by 80% compared to traditional, intuition-driven inputs. I will briefly discuss how our activities in the space of lab automation led to spinning out OGI Bio, an Edinburgh-based start-up focusing on smart bioreactors.