Lab Meeting: Jim Collins

"Can we build something from the bottom up? Can we put circuits together with genes?"

For his early scientific inspiration, Jim Collins looked to the heavens. His father, an electrical engineer, helped design the altimeter that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin used to track their progress towards the moon: “I saw this amazing technology that my dad and his colleagues were making to shoot mankind into the sky,” reflects Collins. 

His initial impressions of medicine were less awe inspiring. Colllins’ grandfathers were crippled by conditions like macular degeneration and cerebrovascular disease: “I saw nothing being done to help them.” This disparity motivated him to use engineering for a different kind of exploration–to better understand human biology.

As an undergraduate at Holy Cross, Jim Collins met Dr. Ken Prestwich.  Prestwich was an accomplished animal physiologist, who introduced a young Collins to biophysics and the study of animal and human locomotion. Later, as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, he extended this work by incorporating concepts like dynamical systems, nonlinear oscillators, and elements of control theory into his studies.  Using cutting-edge engineering and mathematical principles to probe human biology is a leitmotif that would come to define his scientific career.

Back in the US, Collins was recruited to Boston University to open his own lab. Within the BU and broader communities, he met scientists like Charles Cantor, Eric Lander and Lee Hood who encouraged him to apply systems engineering and mathematical approaches to better understand molecular biology.  His work provided the foundation of what would become the field of “synthetic biology.” In an early and seminal paper, Collins and colleagues designed synthetic circuits that could control gene expression in E. coli: “Our prime motivation for building synthetic genes in living cells, was to test our mathematical ideas. It’s interesting that this was the thinking that helped launch what became synthetic biology,” says Collins.

Since then, he has made many contributions to synthetic biology (the field he helped found) as well as diagnostic and therapeutic development.   Collins is currently the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering & Science and Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT, as well as a member of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences & Technology Faculty and is an elected member of all three national academies - the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Medicine.  He has also been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. His technologies have been licensed by over 25 companies, and he has co-founded several biotechs including Synlogic, Senti Biosciences, Sherlock Biosciences, Cellarity and Phare Bio.

In our interview, Collins shares tips for working in interdisciplinary fields, choosing good research problems and company creation. Ultimately, when it comes to starting a lab or a new venture, he stresses collaboration but not conformity: “you don't have to buy into convention. I've never bought into convention.”

Below is an audio recording of interview with Dr. James Collins from September 2023:

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