Progress, Potential, and Possibilities Podcast / Show Dr. Cesar de la Fuente, Ph.D. - Machine Biology - University of Pennsylvania - Prevent, Detect & Treat Infectious Disease
Dr. Cesar de la Fuente, Ph.D. (https://www.med.upenn.edu/apps/faculty/index.php/g275/p9151622) is a Presidential Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he leads the Machine Biology Group (https://delafuentelab.seas.upenn.edu/) whose goal is to combine the power of machines and biology to help prevent, detect, and treat infectious diseases. Specifically, he pioneered the development of the first antibiotic designed by a computer with efficacy in animals, designed algorithms for antibiotic discovery, has reprogrammed venoms into antimicrobials, created novel resistance-proof antimicrobial materials, and invented rapid low-cost diagnostics for COVID-19 and other infections. He has a M.Sc. (Biotechnology) University of Leon, and Ph.D. (Microbiology & Immunology) University of British Columbia. Dr. de la Fuente is an NIH Maximizing Investigators' Research Award investigator and has received recognition and research funding from numerous other groups. Dr. de la Fuente has received over 50 awards including being recognized by MIT Technology Review as one of the world's top innovators for "digitizing evolution to make better antibiotics". He was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Langer Prize, an ACS Kavli Emerging Leader in Chemistry, and received the American Institute of Chemical Engineers 's 35 Under 35 Award and the ACS Infectious Diseases Young Investigator Award. In 2021, he received the Thermo Fisher Award, and the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Academic Early Career Achievement Award "For the pioneering development of novel antibiotics designed using principles from computation, engineering and biology". Most recently, Dr. de la Fuente was awarded the prestigious Princess of Girona Prize for Scientific Research and the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Award for Early Career Applied and Biotechnological Research. Dr. de la Fuente has given over 150 invited lectures and his scientific discoveries have yielded around 100 publications, including papers in Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Communications, PNAS, ACS Nano, Cell, Nature Chemical Biology, Advanced Materials, and multiple patents.