Molecular Communication: Theoretical Models, Practical Applications, and Future Perspectives
Date/Time: January 28th, 3:40 pm
Location: 2019 Morrill Hall
Abstract:
Molecular communication is a bio-inspired paradigm where the exchange of information is realized through the propagation of molecules. This paradigm is successfully adopted in nature by cells for intracellular and intercellular communication. The implicit biocompatibility and nanoscale feasibility of molecular communication make it a promising paradigm for engineering the interconnections between embedded computing systems able to not only directly interact with biological processes, but also utilize these same processes as their building blocks, i.e., Nano-Bio Things. Molecular-communication-based systems and networks have the potential to be the enabling technology for a wide range of applications, mostly in the biomedical, but also in the industrial and surveillance fields. This talk will first survey the main communication engineering models and analysis tools at the basis of molecular communication systems, with particular focus on diffusion-based molecule propagation. Second, novel systems based on engineering molecular communications in the cardiovascular system and the nervous system will be introduced in light of future applications based on intra-body networking. Finally, a glimpse of the tools from synthetic biology available today for engineering cells and their behavior will offer a future perspective on possible realistic avenues for molecular communication research.
Bio:
Massimiliano Pierobon received the M.S. degree in Telecommunication Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, in 2005, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA, in 2013. Since August 2013, he is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), NE, USA, where he also holds a courtesy appointment at the Department of Biochemistry. He received the BWN Lab Researcher of the Year Award at the Georgia Institute of Technology for his outstanding research achievements in 2011. He was also named IEEE Communications Letters 2013 Exemplary Reviewer in appreciation for his service as referee. He is the PI of the NSF project “Telecommunication Systems Modeling and Engineering of Cell Communication Pathways.” His interests are in molecular communication, nanonetworks, synthetic biology, intra-body networks and the Internet of Bio-Nano Things.