Gillette, professor of cell and developmental biology, and colleagues will collaborate on various projects involving innovative single cell analysis in brain and the creation of biological machines in hopes of creating new diagnostic and therapeutic tools.

The work is facilitated by two grants that Gillette is a part of: the Emergent Behaviors of Integrated Cellular Systems (EBICS), which received $25 million in National Science Foundation (NSF) renewal funding for the next five years and the National Institute of Health (NIH) BRAIN Initiative grant which has received more than $2 million in funding over three years.

The goal of the EBICS project is to build living, multi-cellular machines to solve environmental, health, and security problems. These “biological machines” will serve as a basis to deliver drugs more effectively, function as internal diagnostic tools, or as contaminant sensors in the field. Gillette’s group focuses on developing neuronal circuits to provide sensing and processing for the biological machines (biobots).

The (NIH) Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative works towards developing tools to characterize and analyze the brain at the cell and even subcellular levels to show how individual cells and neural circuits interact with each other in time and space. Gillette currently works in Beckman’s NeuroTech Group and studies the brain’s plastic responses to experience, investigating signals that shape and wire the nervous system.