Mark Styczynski
Assistant Professor
Contact Information
Building: Ford ES&T
Office:
L1222
Phone: 404.894.2825
Fax: 404.385.2713
email
Mailing Address
Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Chemical &
Biomolecular Engineering
311 Ferst Drive, N.W.
Atlanta, GA 30332-0100
Links
Mark Styczynski
Education
B.S. 2002, University of Notre Dame
Ph.D. 2007, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Research Interests
Dr. Styczynski’s research lies at the interface of engineering, bioinformatics, molecular biology, and analytical chemistry. His lab takes a systems biology approach to understanding and engineering biotechnologically and biomedically relevant organisms. Using experimental and computational techniques, the lab studies the connections between the different layers of regulation in cells and their ultimate phenotypic outcomes. Of most interest to his lab are metabolites, the small molecule building blocks necessary for all cellular functions both as source materials and as cues that prompt regulation and other cellular responses.
Metabolites are one of the most direct, real-time readouts of cellular state that researchers can assay. Using chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry, the Styczynski lab tracks the concentrations and turnover rates of metabolites, revealing details about the cell’s reaction network and its regulation. The lab’s model organisms include a variety of yeast species. Metabolic and transcriptional responses to environmental and genetic perturbations in these species are studied to understand how these organisms respond to stimuli; this information is then used to engineer the cells to perform novel, useful functions. These yeasts are also used as a model system to understand the evolution and mechanistic underpinnings of cancer metabolism.
The Styczynski lab also performs direct metabolite profiling studies on a variety of other systems such as stem cells, cancer cells, and some novel model systems. In these systems, metabolites can be used as biomarkers that indicate the presence or progression of disease and metabolic dysfunction. Knowledge of such biomarkers can then be used in the development of advanced diagnostics, including tests that look for these biomarkers in biofluids (like blood and urine). Understanding changes in metabolite profiles can also be used to better characterize and manipulate the dynamics and regulation of systems that are under study. Accordingly, the Styczynski lab also works to understand more deeply the many different regulatory and signaling roles that metabolites play in cells.
Dr. Styczynski also has an array of interests in computational biology and bioinformatics. His lab develops new methods for the analysis of large-scale data sets and the synthesis of that data into useful knowledge. Topics of interest include the integration of metabolite data with other types of large-scale data sets, tracking unknown metabolites in samples, deducing fluxes from concentrations of labeled metabolites, and identifying disease biomarkers in metabolomic data from blood and other biofluids.