We work on novel ways to under­stand and con­trol com­plex pat­tern for­ma­ti­on. We use tech­ni­ques of mole­cu­lar gene­tics, bio­phy­sics, and com­pu­ta­tio­nal mode­ling to address lar­ge-sca­le con­trol of growth and form. We work in who­le frogs and flat­worms, and some­ti­mes zebra­fi­sh and human tis­sues in cul­tu­re. Our pro­jects span rege­ne­ra­ti­on, embryo­ge­ne­sis, can­cer, and lear­ning pla­s­ti­ci­ty – all examp­les of how cel­lu­lar net­works pro­cess infor­ma­ti­on. In all of the­se efforts, our goal is not only to under­stand the mole­cu­lar mecha­nisms neces­sa­ry for mor­pho­ge­ne­sis, but also to unco­ver and exploit the coope­ra­ti­ve signal­ing dyna­mics that enable com­plex bodies to build and remo­del them­sel­ves toward a cor­rect structure. 

The elec­tri­cal blue­prints that orchest­ra­te life

DNA isn’t the only buil­der in the bio­lo­gi­cal world — there’s also a mys­te­rious bio­elec­tric lay­er direc­ting cells to work tog­e­ther to grow organs, sys­tems and bodies, says bio­lo­gist Micha­el Levin. Sha­ring unfor­gettable and ground­brea­king foo­ta­ge of two-hea­ded worms, he intro­du­ces us to xen­o­bots — the world’s first living robots, crea­ted in his lab by crack­ing the elec­tri­cal code of cells — and dis­cus­ses what this dis­co­very may mean for the future of medi­ci­ne, the envi­ron­ment and even life its­elf. (This con­ver­sa­ti­on, hos­ted by TED’s Chris Ander­son, was recor­ded June 2020.)

The Levin Lab

We work at the inter­sec­tion of deve­lo­p­men­tal bio­lo­gy, com­pu­ter sci­ence, and cogni­ti­ve sci­ence. Our goal is to under­stand degrees of intel­li­gence at mul­ti­ple sca­les of bio­lo­gi­cal, arti­fi­ci­al, and hybrid sys­tems; we use the­se insights to deve­lop inter­ven­ti­ons in rege­ne­ra­ti­ve medicine.

levin-lab

The Insti­tu­te for Com­pu­ta­tio­nal­ly Desi­gned Orga­nisms (ICDO)

In ear­ly 2020, ICDO foun­ders Joshua Bon­gard (Uni­ver­si­ty of Ver­mont) and Micha­el Levin (Allen Dis­co­very Cen­ter at Tufts Uni­ver­si­ty) were among the lead aut­hors of a paper show­ca­sing a remar­kab­le achie­ve­ment: the world’s first com­pu­ter-desi­gned orga­nism. The New York Times cal­led the­se tiny cell clus­ters, which could move and self-repair, “a new class of living robo­tics,” with the poten­ti­al to pro­found­ly chan­ge sci­ence, medi­ci­ne and our under­stan­ding of life itself.

https://​icd​orgs​.org/