Professor Christopher Contag is the founding director of the Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering at Michigan State University; the Institute was founded in 2016 and is known as IQ
IQ was established to integrate engineering principles into biomedical research to improve human health and control disease. The stated mission of IQ is to create and advance tools that enable quantitative analyses and interrogation of complex biological systems, and to use these tools for a greater understanding of life and living systems.
At the core of its mission is to advance precision health by both developing tools for early detection that enable prompt intervention and creating therapies that target the molecular basis of disease. Medicine has historically been reactive in nature, with interventions delivered in response to symptoms. The paradigm shift toward proactive health care, where intervention occurs prior to symptoms, is the core principle of precision health. The intent of precision health is to maintain or restore health.
IQ was organized around seven divisions/thematic areas
To advance a precision health initiative, IQ was organized around seven divisions/thematic areas, including Biomedical Devices, Chemical Biology, Stem Cell and Developmental Biology, Neuroengineering, Synthetic Biology, Systems Biology and Biomedical Imaging, and these themes were designed to be nimble such that the institute could adjust to emerging areas of biomedical research. Evidence of being nimble was demonstrated early in the COVID-19 pandemic when all of the university’s surveillance testing for SARS-CoV2 was done in the institute—this was well-aligned with the aim of precisely maintaining human health.
Each of the divisions of IQ is comprised of faculty, staff and students from a variety of disciplines whose interests, expertise and goals are aligned within each division, and each division is aligned with the strengths of the University. To support this hub and spoke model and facilitate these alignments, each IQ faculty member has appointments in relevant departments that serve as the tenure homes for the faculty. The multidisciplinarity of the Institute stretches from engineering and chemistry to pediatrics and small animal sciences, with connections to six colleges and eighteen departments on the Michigan State campus.
To enable state-of-the-art science and engineering, the Institute and its divisions support five research cores in the areas of Advanced Microscopy, Stem Cell Biology and Genome Editing, Advanced Molecular Imaging, Single Cell Analytics and Flow Cytometry, and 3D Printing and Bioprinting. These are University-wide cores that contribute to the mission of the Institute, and of the University, enabling investigators to ask comprehensive questions about complex integrated systems. With these tools and new knowledge of living systems, we also seek to create new-to-nature complex integrated systems by, for example, engineering new symbiotic relationships that benefit human health.
Symbiosis comprises the origin of eukaryotes with the endosymbiont theory explaining the origin of eukaryotes as organelles, mitochondria and chloroplasts, deriving from prokaryotes (bacteria) that were engulfed by another cell and the two cells then co-evolving toward more complex cells. These more complex cells were capable of forming multicellular organisms (metazoans) with differentiated cells working cooperatively as tissues and organs.
Creating self-healing and self-strengthening wood to sequester carbon
In one study aiming to engineer a unique symbiotic relationship, Professors Li and Unluturk of IQ are working with Professors Riguerra and Bonito in microbiology and plant sciences at MSU and Professor Li at Purdue University to create self-healing and self-strengthening wood as advanced building materials that sequester carbon.
The 3D-printed living building materials include microbes that can thrive in the material and naturally remove greenhouse gases and repair damage. Similarly, engineered symbiotic relationships can also be used to improve human health.
Synthetic endosymbiogenesis
Dr. Contag and his collaborators, Professors Hardy, Makela and Ashammakhi of IQ, are working to recapitulate 2 billion years of evolution by developing engineered endosymbionts as synthetic organelles that live inside of mammalian cells and act as remote control modules that can be used to guide the regeneration of damaged or diseased tissues.
The team is working with Dr. Glass from the Ventner Institute in California to develop the minimal genome synthetic bacterium, Syn3.0, into a synthetic organelle that can be propagated autonomously, but can then be delivered to the cytoplasm of mammalian cells where it can be used to direct cellular fates and function. As eukaryotes evolved, the genomes of the mitochondria and chloroplasts were reduced naturally by the elimination of DNA that was not needed for survival as an organelle.
Dr. Glass and his colleagues computationally eliminated genes that were not needed for the survival of Syn3.0 and then synthesized a minimal genome that was used to replace the native genome. This minimal genome synthetic bacterium is the ideal chassis organism on which to build a minimal genome, transportable organelle that can be engineered to respond to signals from outside the body and direct functions of cells that are inside organs and tissues in the body.
Synthetic endosymbiogenesis as a means of creating engineered endosymbionts for cellular control is one of many new fields of research that are being pioneered in IQ. The multidisciplinary environment of IQ juxtaposes complementary scientific and engineering expertise that leads to new insights and new connections that drive innovation; this in turn, leads to the creation of new areas of research and new fields of study.
Traditional departmental structures of universities and colleges are important for administration and education and are based on historically defined fields. As such, departments necessarily evolve slowly, if at all, and remain rooted in fundamental principles of their given field, providing a solid and necessary academic structure.
The elimination of academic walls
Institutes can build on this academic scaffold and thrive on the convergence of scientific and engineering disciplines that cut across the boundaries of traditional academic fields and departments. Out-of-the-box thinking isn’t even a thing if there are no boxes—its just thinking. The elimination of academic walls, and the boxes they create, should be the goal of designing and building of institutes. There are no theoretical walls or boxes in IQ; scientists and engineers who live and work in IQ are free to roam all of humanity’s intellectual space as they seek new paradigms and design new tools.
