Description 

NHLBI has several heart, lung, blood, and sleep (HLBS)-focused opportunities and obstacles, and an interest in technologically-based solutions to disease and improved health. This workshop intends to continue bringing these fields together to address HLBS disorders and better understand HLBS molecular mechanisms driving development, regeneration, and pathophysiology through synthetic biology.   

Previously in May 2022, NHLBI hosted the Synthetic Biology and New Directions for HLBS Application Virtual Workshop. This workshop identified various opportunities for NHLBI to pursue synthetic biological tools within the context of HLBS disorders. As a result of this meeting, NHLBI formally signed onto the Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Synthetic Biology for Biomedical Applications (NOT-EB-23-002). Two of the direct outcomes included joining the larger NIH synthetic biology effort and hosting a follow-on workshop where tool developers and tool users could meet to forge new collaborations.   

As NHLBI moves forward in this space, NHLBI seeks identify potential partnerships between scientists and bioengineers with HLBS expertise, and synthetic and engineering biologists. The objective of this workshop is to look for potential synthetic biological tools or platforms that directly address (and potentially overcome) obstacles within HLBS disorders. The primary output will be a peer-reviewed whitepaper detailing progress, and establishing and solidifying the collaborations to encourage the resulting applications to NHLBI.  

This workshop is open to the public on November 4-5 and closed to the public on November 8.