Abstract:

Nature is a rich source of sulfated polysaccharides, which have huge structural and functional diversity, and are found in a wide variety of natural products. In some cases, the sources are easily obtained and found in abundance, including macroalga that comprise seaweeds. In this talk, I will discuss two recent activities in my lab along these lines. In the first case, we have focused on the >100-year-old sulfated polysaccharide drug, heparin, and have developed a synthetic biology-based, scalable and non-animal sourced bioengineered process to overcome multiple challenges, ranging from insecure supply chains to contamination and significant variability. The newly developed bioengineered heparin represents a unique alternative for the reliable and controllable supply of this essential medicine. This is the first demonstration of a biosynthetic process to generate a critical complex pharmaceutical. In the second case, we have isolated fucoidans from brown seaweeds and discovered that specific fractions are highly potent against viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Both in vitro and animal studies were used to elucidate the mechanism of virus inhibition and to demonstrate prophylactic activity against viral infection and disease progression.

Speakers’ bio:

Jonathan S. Dordick is Institute Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), with a joint appointment in the Department of Biological Sciences, and is the Vice President for Strategic Alliances and Translation. He was the founding Co-Director of the Rensselaer-Mount Sinai Center for Engineering and Precision Medicine located in New York City. He received his B.A. degree in Biochemistry and Chemistry from Brandeis University and his Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering from MIT. Prior to joining RPI, he was Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering at the University of Iowa.

Dr. Dordick has made foundational contributions to enzyme technology, microscale cell culture engineering, drug discovery and human toxicology, and biomanufacturing. He pioneered the development of enzymatic and chemoenzymatic methods for new materials synthesis, initiated the new field of molecular bioprocessing, which combines biocatalytic molecular diversity and in vitro metabolic pathway engineering with high-throughput and high-content microfluidic- and microarray-based tools to generate biologically active compounds, and greatly expanded the fundamental understanding of enzymatic catalysis in abiotic environments critical for chemical and pharmaceutical processing. Finally, he has used biomolecular discovery and engineering to address clinical translation in areas of infectious and neurological diseases, anticoagulant therapy, and highly sensitive point-of-care biosensors based on CRISPR technology.

Dr. Dordick has received numerous awards and honors, including election to the National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Inventors, ACS Daniel IC Wang Award for Excellence in Biochemical Engineering, SBE James E. Bailey Award, Amgen Award in Biochemical and Molecular Engineering, AIChE Food, Pharmaceutical and Bioengineering Award, and ACS-BIOT Marvin J. Johnson Award, among other awards. He is Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society and American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. He has cofounded several companies, including EnzyMed, Solidus Biosciences, Inc., Redpin Therapeutics, SynAppBio, and Lavaage, Inc. Dr. Dordick has published over 450 papers and is an inventor/co-inventor on over 50 patents and patent applications.