Michael Elowitz

Michael B. Elowitz is the Roscoe Gilkey Dickinson Professor of Biology and Bioengineering and an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the California Institute of Technology. He received a B.A. from the University of California in 1992 and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1999. Elowitz joined Caltech in 2003 as Assistant Professor and Bren Scholar, progressing to Associate Professor in 2009, Professor in 2010, and his current endowed position in 2024. From 2013 to 2020, he served as Executive Officer for Biology and Biological Engineering. Since 2008, he has been an HHMI Investigator, contributing leadership to the division's academic programs and research initiatives.

Elowitz's research specializes in synthetic biology and systems biology, elucidating design principles of molecular circuits formed by interacting genes and proteins in mammalian cells. His laboratory engineers synthetic circuits to imbue cells with novel functions such as computation, communication, and memory, essential for multicellular behaviors and therapeutic applications. They employ a build-to-understand strategy, creating fully synthetic circuits alongside quantitative analysis of natural pathways using mathematical modeling and single-cell imaging. Landmark achievements include the repressilator, detailed in 'A synthetic oscillatory network of transcriptional regulators' (Nature, 2000), the first demonstration of a synthetic genetic oscillator producing sustained protein oscillations in bacteria. Other seminal works encompass 'Intrinsic and extrinsic contributions to stochasticity in gene expression' (PNAS, 2002), exploring noise sources in gene regulation; 'Programming gene expression with combinatorial promoters' (Molecular Systems Biology, 2007); and 'Programmable protein circuits in living cells' (Science, 2018). These innovations have transformed understanding of cellular decision-making and laid groundwork for programmable therapeutics. Elowitz's impact is recognized through the MacArthur Fellowship (2007), election to the National Academy of Sciences (2022), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2015), and AAAS fellowship.

Professional Email: melowitz@caltech.edu