User:Cesar de la Fuente-Nunez/sandbox

Cesar de la Fuente (born January 5, 1986) is a Spanish-Canadian synthetic biologist, bioengineer and microbiologist and a Presidential Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn). Through the computerization of biological systems, Prof. de la Fuente seeks to expand nature’s repertoire to build novel synthetic molecular tools and devise therapies that nature has not previously discovered. Prof. de la Fuente is using computers to address the dire public health problem of antibiotic-resistant infections, which are predicted to become the leading cause of death in our society by the year 2050, surpassing cancer as a cause of death and costing the global economy 100 trillion dollars. As the leader of the Machine Biology Group at UPenn, Prof. de la Fuente aims to develop computer-made tools and medicines that will replenish our current antibiotic arsenal. Prof. de la Fuente has already made fundamental discoveries regarding the computer-guided design of novel antibiotics to combat antibiotic resistance and has achieved considerable recognition for this work. Specifically, Prof. de la Fuente led a project that used computers to evolve natural molecules; these computer-generated peptides were active against bacteria in mouse models, thus Prof. de la Fuente demonstrated that machines could be trained to create useful potential medicines.

Biography
Prof. de la Fuente received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biotechnology from the Universidad de Leon in 2009 and a doctorate in microbiology and immunology from the University of British Columbia in 2014. During his doctoral work, de la Fuente developed a new class of synthetic molecules derived from nature, called anti-biofilm peptides, that can prevent and eradicate bacterial biofilms, which are particularly difficult to treat with existing antibiotics and pose a significant problem to hospitals. He also designed synthetic peptides capable of potentiating the activity of existing antibiotics, and molecules that successfully re-sensitized drug-resistant bacteria to the drug they are resistant to. From 2015-2019, he was a Postdoctoral Associate and Ramon Areces Foundation Fellow at MIT in the Department of Biological Engineering, the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, and the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE). In 2019, he was appointed as Presidential Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is affiliated with the Departments of Bioengineering, Microbiology and Psychiatry. Prof. de la Fuente is leading the Machine Biology Group at UPenn to integrate synthetic biology, microbiology, automation, computer science, and AI in the pursuit of effective anti-infective drugs and other life-saving synthetic molecules. Prof. de la Fuente’s scientific discoveries have already yielded over 70 peer-reviewed publications as well as multiple patents. In addition to his scientific achievements, Prof. de la Fuente is known for his commitment to expanding the reach of STEM fields to include groups historically underrepresented in science and engineering.

Awards
Prof. de la Fuente’s scientific accomplishments have been recognized by numerous awards. In 2019, de la Fuente was named to the MIT Technology Review TR35 as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35 for “digitizing evolution to make better antibiotics”. Prof. de la Fuente was also selected a Top 10 Under 40 of 2019 by GEN, which identifies the top 10 emerging professionals in biotechnology and engineering under the age of 40. The list, which recognizes up-and-coming leaders in the life sciences, both in industry and academia, selected Prof. de la Fuente for “pioneering the computerization of biological systems for the development of transformative biotechnologies designed to solve societal grand challenges such as antibiotic resistance.” GEN made note of Prof. de la Fuente’s patents, his doctoral and postdoctoral work in microbiology, and his commitment to improving medical treatment. In 2019, de la Fuente received the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Young Investigator Award, which recognizes the exemplary contributions made by a scientist or engineer 36 years of age or younger who has contributed in outstanding and innovative ways to the progress of research in any field of science and engineering. In 2018, de la Fuente was named a Wunderkind by STAT News, which recognizes the next generation of scientific superstars. Previous awards include being selected as an ACS Nano Junior Fellow (2017), an MIT Technology Review Top 10 Innovator “Under 35” (Spain) (2016), and a Boston Latino 30 Under 30, an award given to the thirty most influential young Hispanic and Latino individuals in any field in the Boston area. In 2019, he was invited by the American Academy of Achievement as a Delegate to attend the 53rd International Achievement Summit in New York City, and also to deliver the commencement speech at the Fundación “la Caixa” doctoral fellowship ceremony in Barcelona, Spain.

Work
Professor de la Fuente has pioneered the development of novel antibiotics using principles from chemistry, physics, microbiology, synthetic biology, and AI. His use of computers has massively reduced experimental testing, thus saving the time, labor, and expense of developing new therapeutic drugs. He has built a computational platform to design the first peptide antibiotics that work in animals. This work demonstrated that peptides could be evolved in silico to optimize their biological function, which translated into promising therapeutics. Drawing inspiration from technologies created for facial and speech recognition, Prof. de la Fuente has helped build pattern recognition algorithms to discover antimicrobial molecules in the human body. Prof. de la Fuente also led a team that, through a first-principles structure-guided approach, reprogrammed a toxin from wasp venom into an antibiotic having anti-infective activity in mice. Prof. de la Fuente has also built living cells that make useful drugs and has scaled-up this technology, using bioreactors to facilitate on-demand manufacturing at the point-of-care.