Michael B. Elowitz is a biologist and professor of Biology, Bioengineering, and Applied Physics at the California Institute of Technology,^[1][2][3] and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.^[4] In 2007 he was the recipient of the Genius grant, better known as the MacArthur Fellows Program for the design of a synthetic gene regulatory network, the Repressilator, which helped initiate the field of synthetic biology.^[5] He was the first to show how inherently random effects, or 'noise', in gene expression could be detected and quantified in living cells,^[6] leading to a growing recognition of the many roles that noise plays in living cells. His work in Synthetic Biology and Noise represent two foundations of the field of Systems Biology. Since then, his laboratory has contributed to the development of synthetic biological circuits that perform a range of functions inside cells, and revealed biological circuit design principles underlying epigenetic memory, cell fate control, cell-cell communication, and multicellular behaviors.^[7]

Quick Facts External videos ...

External videos
“Beat of life: Understanding the cell’s rhythms”, Michael Elowitz on cellular oscillations, Knowable Magazine

Close

His laboratory studies the dynamics of genetic circuits in individual living cells using synthetic biology, time-lapse microscopy, and mathematical modeling, with a particular focus on the way in which cells make use of noise to implement behaviors that would be difficult or impossible without it. Recently, his lab has expanded their approaches beyond bacteria to include eukaryotic and mammalian cells.^[8]

Elowitz grew up in Los Angeles, California, where he attended the humanities magnet at Alexander Hamilton High School (Los Angeles). He studied Physics and graduated with a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992,^[9] and from Princeton University with a Ph.D. in 1999.^[10] In 1997–1998, he spent one year at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory at Heidelberg. Afterwards, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University in New York City.

While working as a graduate student at Princeton he co-authored songs such as Sunday at the Lab^[11] with Uri Alon.

• 2022 Elected to the US National Academy of Sciences^[12]
• 2019 Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in Biophysics
• 2016 Elected to the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO)
• 2016 Fellow, American Academy for the Advancement of Science.^[13]
• 2015 Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 2011 HFSP Nakasone Award^[14]
• 2008 Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering^[15]
• 2008 Discover Magazine "Top 20 under 40"^[16]
• 2007 MacArthur Fellows Program^[17]
• 2006 Packard Fellow^[18]
• 2004 Technology Review TR100 List of Top Innovators^[19]
• 2004 Searle Scholar
• 2003 Burroughs Welcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface^[20]

• Li P, Markson JS, Wang S, Chen S, Vachharajan V, Elowitz MB, "Morphogen gradient reconstitution reveals Hedgehog pathway design principles," Science (2018).^[21]
• Bintu L, Yong J, Antebi YE, McCue K, Kazuki Y, Uno N, Oshimura M, Elowitz MB, "Dynamics of epigenetic regulation at the single-cell level," Science (2016).^[22]
• Lin Y, Sohn CH, Dalal CK, Cai L, Elowitz MB, Combinatorial gene regulation by modulation of relative pulse timing, Nature, 2015^[23]
• Suel, G. M.; Kulkarni, R. P.; Dworkin, J.; Garcia-Ojalvo, J.; Elowitz, M. B. (2007). "Tunability and Noise Dependence in Differentiation Dynamics" (PDF). Science. 315 (5819): 1716–1719. Bibcode:2007Sci...315.1716S. doi:10.1126/science.1137455. PMID 17379809. S2CID 14578955.
• Süel, G. R. M.; Garcia-Ojalvo, J.; Liberman, L. M.; Elowitz, M. B. (2006). "An excitable gene regulatory circuit induces transient cellular differentiation". Nature. 440 (7083): 545–550. Bibcode:2006Natur.440..545S. doi:10.1038/nature04588. PMID 16554821. S2CID 4327745.
• Sprinzak, D.; Elowitz, M. B. (2005). "Reconstruction of genetic circuits". Nature. 438 (7067): 443–448. Bibcode:2005Natur.438..443S. doi:10.1038/nature04335. PMID 16306982. S2CID 11916084.
• Rosenfeld, N.; Young, J. W.; Alon, U.; Swain, P. S.; Elowitz, M. B. (2005). "Gene Regulation at the Single-Cell Level" (PDF). Science. 307 (5717): 1962–1965. Bibcode:2005Sci...307.1962R. doi:10.1126/science.1106914. PMID 15790856. S2CID 5960560.
• Elowitz, M. B.; Levine, A. J.; Siggia, E. D.; Swain, P. S. (2002). "Stochastic Gene Expression in a Single Cell". Science. 297 (5584): 1183–1186. Bibcode:2002Sci...297.1183E. doi:10.1126/science.1070919. PMID 12183631. S2CID 10845628.
• Guet, C. A. ;L. C.; Elowitz, M. B.; Hsing, W.; Leibler, S. (2002). "Combinatorial Synthesis of Genetic Networks". Science. 296 (5572): 1466–1470. Bibcode:2002Sci...296.1466G. doi:10.1126/science.1067407. PMID 12029133. S2CID 1574494.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Elowitz, M. B.; Leibler, S. (2000). "A synthetic oscillatory network of transcriptional regulators". Nature. 403 (6767): 335–338. Bibcode:2000Natur.403..335E. doi:10.1038/35002125. PMID 10659856. S2CID 41632754.
• Rosenfeld, N.; Elowitz, M. B.; Alon, U. (2002). "Negative autoregulation speeds the response times of transcription networks". Journal of Molecular Biology. 323 (5): 785–793. doi:10.1016/S0022-2836(02)00994-4. PMID 12417193.
• Elowitz, M. B.; Surette, M. G.; Wolf, P. E.; Stock, J.; Leibler, S. (1997). "Photoactivation turns green fluorescent protein red". Current Biology. 7 (10): 809–812. doi:10.1016/S0960-9822(06)00342-3. PMID 9368766. S2CID 15170084.
• Levine, J. H.; Fontes, M. E.; Dworkin, J.; Elowitz, M. B. (2012). Laub, Michael (ed.). "Pulsed Feedback Defers Cellular Differentiation". PLOS Biology. 10 (1): e1001252. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001252. PMC 3269414. PMID 22303282.
• Locke, J. C. W.; Young, J. W.; Fontes, M.; Jimenez, M. J. H.; Elowitz, M. B. (2011). "Stochastic Pulse Regulation in Bacterial Stress Response". Science. 334 (6054): 366–369. Bibcode:2011Sci...334..366L. doi:10.1126/science.1208144. PMC 4100694. PMID 21979936.