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Sebastian Palacios

Biography
Dr. Sebastian Palacios received his Ph.D. from MIT in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, where his doctoral research focused on developing machine learning systems for engineering next-generation gene therapies. During his graduate studies, he received the Harvard-MIT Martha Gray Prize for Excellence in Research, MIT's Shillman Fellowship, MIT's University Center for Exemplary Mentoring Sloan Fellowship, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship, and was awarded for excellence in leadership at the MIT Awards Convocation. He received M.S. and B.S. degrees from MIT and Georgia Tech in electrical engineering, computer engineering, and computer science. Besides his active leadership in science and engineering, Sebastian is a passionate educator and advocate for diversity in STEM.
Research Interests
My research interests focus on three broad categories:
1. The development of machine learning systems for biological design with an emphasis on designing next-generation therapeutics.
2. The development of synthetic genetic systems that comprise both memory and computation. In particular, I am interested in elucidating and engineering epigenetic cell memory as a framework for engineering novel useful functions in living cells.
3. The development of systems and tools for reliably engineering human cells, combining genome engineering, synthetic biology, machine learning, computer engineering and mathematical modeling for robust design and engineering.
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