JOSEP of Northeastern University

Major breakthroughs in the field of biophotonics, genomics and stem cell biology are enabling the control of

biological processes through light. By incorporating light-actuated and light-emitting proteins into cells, key

biological processes at the single-cell level can be controlled in real time. In parallel to such developments,

nanotechnology is providing the engineering community with a new set of tools to create novel nanoscale

devices with unprecedented functionalities. These include, among others, plasmonic nano-lasers with sub-

micrometric footprint, plasmonic nano-antennas able to confine light in nanometric structures, or single-

photon detectors with unrivaled sensitivity, which can be combined to create novel optical nano-sensors and

nano-actuators. Together, networks of nano-actuators and nano-sensors can control and monitor biological

processes at the sub-cellular level with unprecedented temporal and spatial accuracy. The resulting light-

mediated nano-bio-interfaces enable new unique applications, ranging from new tools to study, understand

and enhance the recovery from developmental and neurodegenerative diseases to novel brain machine

interfaces and other technologies targeted at enriching human-machine interaction. In this talk, the

fundamentals and the experimental state of the art and future research directions for wireless nano-bio

communication networks enabled by optogenomics will be presented. Optogenomic interfaces are light-

mediated nano-bio-interfaces that allow the control and monitoring of the genome and, thus, of all the cell

functionalities, with (sub) cellular resolution and high temporal accuracy. The biological principles of cell

development and function and, in particular, the role of the FGFR1 gene will be described. Then, the state-

of-the-art in optical nano-devices will be summarized. Experimental results demonstrating the feasibility to

optically actuating the expression of FGFR1 and, thus, the genome, will be presented. Future steps towards

moving the fundamental in-vitro lab to in-vivo testing and, ultimately, deployment in humans, will be discussed

while highlighting the role of wireless communication engineers in this truly transformative research

paradigm

Biography:

Josep M. Jornet is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the

Director of the Ultrabroadband Nanonetworking Laboratory and a faculty member of the Institute for the

Wireless Internet of Things and the SMART Center at Northeastern University, in Boston, MA. He received

a B.S. in Telecommunication Engineering and an M.Sc. in Information and Communication Technologies

from the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, in 2008. He received a Ph.D. degree in

Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, in 2013. His

research interests are in Terahertz-band communication networks, Wireless Nano-bio-communication

Networks and the Internet of Nano-Things. In these areas, he has co-authored more than 200 peer-reviewed

scientific publications, 1 book, and has also been granted 5 US patents, which accumulate over 12,800

citations (h-index of 52) as of August 2022. He is serving as the lead PI on multiple grants from U.S. federal

agencies including the National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the Air

Force Research Laboratory. He is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award and of

several other awards from IEEE, ACM, UB, and NU. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, a member of the

ACM, and an IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer (class of 2022-2023). He is serving as a Vice Chair of

IEEE ComSoc RCC SIG on THz Communications, and as an Editor for IEEE Transactions on

Communications. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Elsevier Nano Communication Networks Journal and

serves on the Steering Committee of the ACM Conference Series on Nanoscale Computing and

Communications. Email: jmjornet@northeastern.edu, Webpage: https://www.unlab.tech

Address:Boston, Massachusetts, United States