Andrew Spakowitz received his BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 1999 and PhD in Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology in 2004. He was a postdoctoral scholar in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of California, Berkeley from 2004 to 2006. Andrew Spakowitz joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford as an Assistant Professor in August 2006. Professor Spakowitz currently serves as the Tang Family Foundation Chair of Chemical Engineering.

2024 CME NASA Symposium Abstract

Biological systems are equipped with a diverse repertoire of proteins that regulate DNA topology with precision that is beyond the reach of conventional polymer chemistry. We harness the unique properties of topoisomerases to synthesize Olympic hydrogels formed by topologically interlinked DNA rings. Using dynamic light scattering microrheology to probe the viscoelasticity of DNA topological networks, we show that topoisomerase II enables the facile preparation of active, ATP-driven Olympic hydrogels that can be switched between liquid and solid states on demand.