Michael Elowitz

Michael Elowitz is an HHMI Investigator and Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering at Caltech. His laboratory takes a “build to understand” approach to understand principles of biological circuit design. Elowitz developed a variety of synthetic biological circuits, in bacteria and mammalian cells. His lab has shown that gene expression is intrinsically stochastic, or ‘noisy;’ revealed how noise functions to enable probabilistic differentiation, time-based regulation, and other functions; created and analyzed synthetic and natural circuit designs for cell-cell communication, epigenetic memory and cell fate control; and established foundational concepts for future cell-based therapeutics. Honors include the HFSP Nakasone Award, MacArthur Fellowship, Presidential Early Career Award, Allen Distinguished Investigator Award, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and National Academy of Sciences.