I am also the Lead PI on the UKRI-funded Engineering Biology Transition Award, "Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Biology" Consortium (AI-4-EB). The vision for AI-4-EB is to leverage and combine key enabling technologies in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Engineering Biology (EB) to pioneer a new era of world-leading advances that accelerate learning and design of Engineered Biological Systems. Through the AI-4-EB Consortium, we are building a network of inter-connected and inter-disciplinary researchers to both develop and apply next-generation AI technologies to the design and optimisation of biological systems across scales. Overall, AI-4-EB provides the necessary step-change for the analysis of large and heterogeneous biological data sets, and for AI-based design and optimisation of biological systems with sufficient predictive power to accelerate Engineering Biology.
I joined Imperial College in December 2009 as a Lecturer and got promoted to Reader in August 2014, and to full Professor in June 2019. From January 2006 until December 2009, I worked in the Control Group of the University of Cambridge (U.K.) as a Research Associate with support from EPSRC (EP/E02761X/1) for the period January 2007 - January 2010 and support from a European Commission FP6 Marie-Curie Intra-European Fellowship (EU FP6 IEF 025509 GASO) for the period January 2006 - January 2007. From January 2006 until December 2009, I was the weekly seminar organiser for the Cambridge University Control Group.
From June to December 2005, I worked as Senior DSP Engineer at Philips Applied Technologies (now Philips Research). I received my electrical engineering degree (with a speciality in electronics) in June 2000 and my Ph.D. degree (in Applied Sciences with a focus on Analysis and Control of Nonlinear Dynamical Systems) in March 2005, both from the University of Liège, Belgium. During my PhD, I mainly worked in the Nonlinear Systems and Control group at the Systems and Modeling research unit of the University of Liège and was supported by a PhD Research Fellowship from the F.N.R.S. (the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research).
This 5 min video of a talk I gave at the World Economic Forum Summer Meeting 2015 is also a good introduction to some of the things were are interested in the Control Engineering Synthetic Biology group:
DiscDiff: Latent Diffusion Model for DNA Sequence Generation, Z. Li, Y. Ni, W. Beardall, G. Xia, A. Das, G.-B. Stan, Y. Zhao, In Proceedings of the 41st International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2024), Messe Wien Exhibition Congress Center, Vienna, Austria, 21-27 July 2024.
Latent Diffusion Model for DNA Sequence Generation, Z. Li, Y. Ni, T. Huygelen, A. Das, G. Xia, G.-B. Stan, Y. Zhao, In Proceedings of the NeurIPS 2023 AI for Science Workshop (NeurIPS AI4Science), New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, USA, 16 December, 2023.
SBOL Visual 2 Ontology, G. Misirli, T. E. Gorochowski, G.-B. Stan, A. Wipat, C. Myers, ACS Synthetic Biology, Volume 9 (2020), n°4, pp. 972-977, doi:10.1021/acssynbio.0c00046.
Burden-driven feedback control of gene expression, F. Ceroni, A. Boo, S. Furini, T. E. Gorochowski, O. Borkowski, Y. N. Ladak, A. R. Awan, C. Gilbert, G.-B. Stan, T. Ellis, Nature Methods, Volume 15 (2018), pp. 387-393, doi:10.1038/nmeth.4635. The paper made the cover of the May 2018 issue of Nature Methods.
The Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL) provides a community standard for communicating designs in synthetic biology, M. Galdzicki, K. Clancy, E. Oberortner, M. Pocock, J. Quinn, C. Rodriguez, N. Roehner, M. Wilson, L. Adam, J. C. Anderson, B. Bartley, J. Beal, D. Chandran, J. Chen, D. Densmore, D. Endy, R. Gruenberg, J. Hallinan, N. Hillson, J. Johnson, A. Kuchinsky, M. Lux, G. Misirli, J. Peccoud, H. Plahar, E. Sirin, G.-B. Stan, A. Villalobos, A. Wipat, J. H. Gennari, C. Myers, H. Sauro, Nature Biotechnology, Volume 32 (2014), pp. 545–550, doi:10.1038/nbt.2891.
Engineering and ethical perspectives in synthetic biology, J. Anderson, N. Strelkowa, G.-B. Stan, T. Douglas, J. Savulescu, M. Barahona, and A. Papachristodoulou, EMBO reports, Volume 13 (2012), n°7, pp. 584-590, doi:10.1038/embor.2012.81.
I am passionate about developing new concepts and methods and applying the produced results to real-life problems. Currently, my main research interests are: Nonlinear Dynamical Systems Analysis and Control, Synthetic Biology, Systems Biology.
I am currently interested in the modelling, analysis, design, control, and implementation of cellular systems (in particular biomolecular feedback systems and gene regulatory networks); and in applications of systems and control engineering methods to the problem of robustly and optimally controlling natural or synthetic biology systems, e.g., robust control of gene regulation networks or optimal drug cocktails scheduling for chronic-like diseases treatments (e.g. cancer and HIV).
Synthetic Biology: a Primer (Revised Edition), G. Baldwin, T. Bayer, R. Dickinson, T. Ellis, P. Freemont, R. Kitney, K. Polizzi, N. Rose, G.-B. Stan, Imperial College Press, Oct. 2015, ISBN-10: 1783268794, ISBN-13: 978-1783268795.
DiscDiff: Latent Diffusion Model for DNA Sequence Generation, Z. Li, Y. Ni, W. Beardall, G. Xia, A. Das, G.-B. Stan, Y. Zhao, In Proceedings of the 41st International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2024), Messe Wien Exhibition Congress Center, Vienna, Austria, 21-27 July, 2024.
Latent Diffusion Model for DNA Sequence Generation, Z. Li, Y. Ni, T. Huygelen, A. Das, G. Xia, G.-B. Stan, Y. Zhao, In Proceedings of the NeurIPS 2023 AI for Science Workshop (NeurIPS AI4Science), New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, USA, 16 December, 2023.
Homeostasis, I. Slutsky, G. Schratt, G.-B. Stan, S. Nelson, F. J. Bruggeman, Cell Systems, Volume 12 (2021), n°12, pp. 1124-1126, doi:10.1016/j.cels.2021.11.002.
SBOL Visual 2 Ontology, G. Misirli, T. E. Gorochowski, G.-B. Stan, A. Wipat, C. Myers, ACS Synthetic Biology, Volume 9 (2020), n°4, pp. 972-977, doi:10.1021/acssynbio.0c00046.
Host-Aware Synthetic Biology, A. Boo, T. Ellis, G.-B. Stan, Current Opinion in Systems Biology, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 66-72, doi:10.1016/j.coisb.2019.03.001.
A systematic framework for biomolecular system identification, Z. Tuza, L. Bandiera, D. Gomez-Cabeza, G.-B. Stan, F. Menolascina, Proceedings of the 58th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC 2019), invited tutorial session on "BioControl", Nice, France, 11-13 December, 2019.
Burden-driven feedback control of gene expression, F. Ceroni, A. Boo, S. Furini, T. E. Gorochowski, O. Borkowski, Y. N. Ladak, A. R. Awan, C. Gilbert, G.-B. Stan, T. Ellis, Nature Methods, Volume 15 (2018), pp. 387-393, doi:10.1038/nmeth.4635. The paper made the cover of the May 2018 issue of Nature Methods.
Synthetic Biology Open Language Visual (SBOL Visual) Version 2.0, R. S. Cox, C. Madsen, J. McLaughlin, T. Nguyen, N. Roehner, A. Wipat, B. Bartley, J. Beal, S. Bhatia, M. Bissell, K. Clancy, T. Gorochowski, R. Grunberg, A. Luna, C. Myers, N. Le Novere, M. Pocock, H. Sauro, J. T. Sexton, G.-B. Stan, J. J. Tabor, C. Voigt, Z. Zundel, K. Polizzi, Journal of Integrative Bioinformatics, Volume 15 (2018), n°1, doi:10.1515/jib-2017-0074.
Constructing Synthetic Biology Workflows in the Cloud, G. Misirli, C. Madsen, I. Sainz de Murieta, M. Bultelle, K. Flanagan, M. Pocock, J. Hallinan, J. A. Mclaughlin, J. Clark-Casey, M. Lyne, G. Micklem, G.-B. Stan, R. Kitney, A. Wipat, IET Engineering Biology, Volume 1 (2017), n°1, pp. 61-65, doi:10.1049/enb.2017.0001.
Online Model Selection for Synthetic Gene Networks, W. Pan, F. Menolascina, G.-B. Stan, Proceedings of the 55th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC 2016), Las Vegas, NV, USA, 12-14 December, 2016.
2015
SBOL Visual: A Graphical Language for Genetic Designs, J. Y. Quinn, R. S. Cox III, A. Adler, J. Beal, S. Bhatia, Y. Cai, J. Chen, K. Clancy, M. Galdzicki, N. J. Hilson, N. Le Novere, A. J. Maheshwari, J. A. McLaughlin, C. J. Myers, U. P, M. Pocock, C. Rodriguez, L. Soldatova, G.-B. Stan, N. Swainston, A. Wipat, H. M. Sauro, PLoS Biology, 2015, doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002310.
The Moveable Feast of Predictive Reward Discounting in Humans, B. Schoenhense, L. Dickens, B. Caldas, G.-B. Stan, A. Faisal, Proceedings of the 2nd Multidisciplinary Conference on Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making (RDLM 2015), The University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 7-10 June, 2015.
Shaping Pulses to Control Bistable Biological Systems, A. Sootla, D. Oyarzun, D. Angeli, G.-B. Stan, Proceedings of the 2015 American Control Conference (ACC 2015), Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, IL, 1-3 July, 2015.
The Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL) provides a community standard for communicating designs in synthetic biology, M. Galdzicki, K. Clancy, E. Oberortner, M. Pocock, J. Quinn, C. Rodriguez, N. Roehner, M. Wilson, L. Adam, J. C. Anderson, B. Bartley, J. Beal, D. Chandran, J. Chen, D. Densmore, D. Endy, R. Gruenberg, J. Hallinan, N. Hillson, J. Johnson, A. Kuchinsky, M. Lux, G. Misirli, J. Peccoud, H. Plahar, E. Sirin, G.-B. Stan, A. Villalobos, A. Wipat, J. H. Gennari, C. Myers, H. Sauro, Nature Biotechnology, Volume 32 (2014), pp. 545–550, doi:10.1038/nbt.2891.
Toggling a Genetic Switch Using Reinforcement Learning, A. Sootla, N. Strelkowa, D. Ernst, M. Barahona, G.-B. Stan, Proceedings of the 9th French Meeting on Planning, Decision Making and Learning (JFPDA 2014), Liege, Belgium, 12-13 May, 2014.
Tuning the Dials of Synthetic Biology: A Review, J. Arpino, E. Hancock, J. Anderson, M. Barahona, G.-B. Stan, A. Papachristodoulou, K. Polizzi, Microbiology, Special Issue on Synthetic Biology, Volume 159 (2013), pp. 1236-1253 doi:10.1099/mic.0.067975-0.
Building-in Biosafety for Synthetic Biology, O. Wright, G.-B. Stan, T. Ellis, Microbiology, Special Issue on Synthetic Biology, Volume 159 (2013), pp. 1221-1235, doi:10.1099/mic.0.066308-0.
Decentralised Minimal-time Consensus, Y. Yuan, G.-B. Stan, L. Shi, M. Barahona, J. Gonçalves, Automatica, Volume 49 (2013), n°5, pp. 1227-1235, doi:10.1016/j.automatica.2013.02.015
Engineering and ethical perspectives in synthetic biology, J. Anderson, N. Strelkowa, G.-B. Stan, T. Douglas, J. Savulescu, M. Barahona, and A. Papachristodoulou, EMBO reports, Volume 13 (2012), n°7, pp. 584-590, doi:10.1038/embor.2012.81.
Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL) Version 1.1.0, M. Galdzicki, M. L. Wilson, C. A. Rodriguez, M. R. Pocock, E. Oberortner, L. Adam, A. Adler, J. C. Anderson, J. Beal, C. Yizhi, D. Chandran, D. Densmore, O. A. Drory, D. Endy, J. H. Gennari, R. Grunberg, T. S. Ham, J. N. Hillson, J. D. Johnson, A. Kuchinsky, M. W. Lux, C. Madsen, G. Misirli, C. J. Myers, C. Olguin, J. Peccoud, H. Plahar, D. Platt, N. Roehner, E. Sirin, T. F. Smith, G.-B. Stan, A. Villalobos, A. Wipat, and H. M. Sauro, BBF RFC 87, 2012, doi:1721.1/73909
Fast consensus via predictive pinning control, H.-T. Zhang, M. Z. Q. Chen, G.-B. Stan, IEEE Transaction on Circuits and Systems I, Volume 58 (2011), n°9, pp. 2247-2258, doi:10.1109/TCSI.2011.2123450.
Robust dynamical network structure reconstruction, Y. Yuan, G.-B. Stan, S. Warnick, J. M. Gonçalves, Automatica, Special Issue on Systems Biology, Volume 47 (2011), n°6, pp. 1230-1235, doi:10.1016/j.automatica.2011.03.008.
Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL) Version 1.0.0, M. Galdzicki, M. L. Wilson, C. A. Rodriguez, L. Adam, A. Adler, J. C. Anderson, J. Beal, D. Chandran, D. Densmore, O. A. Drory, D. Endy, J. H. Gennari, R. Grunberg, T. S. Ham, A. Kuchinsky, M. W. Lux, C. Madsen, G. Misirli, C. J. Myers, J. Peccoud, H. Plahar, M. R. Pocock, N. Roehner, T. F. Smith, G.-B. Stan, A. Villalobos, A. Wipat, and H. M. Sauro, BBF RFC 84, 2011, doi:1721.1/66172
Network of passive oscillators, V. Kulkarni, M. Riedel, G.-B. Stan, Proceedings of the 49th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Allerton Retreat Center, Monticello, Illinois, USA, 28-30 September, 2011.
Decentralised Minimal-time Consensus, Y. Yuan, G.-B. Stan, L. Shi, M. Barahona, J. Gonçalves, Proceedings of the 50th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC 2011), Orlando, Florida, USA, 12-15 December, 2011.
Robust Dynamical Network Reconstruction, Y. Yuan, G.-B. Stan, S. Warnick, J. Gonçalves, Proceedings of the 49th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC 2010), Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 15-17 December, 2010.
Global Analysis of Limit Cycles in Networks of Oscillators, G.-B. Stan, R. Sepulchre, Proceedings of the 6th IFAC International Symposium on Nonlinear Control Systems (NOLCOS 2004), Stuttgart, Germany, September 1-3, 2004, pp. 1433-1438.
The lecture notes for the course "Robust Multivariable Control: Design of Multivariable Systems (Dynamic Programming, H-2 and H-infinity optimal control)" that I have lectured during the lent terms of 2008 and 2009 at the Department of Engineering of the University of Cambridge are available here:
part 1, part 2, part 3. Example papers, solutions.
A summary of the course that I have been involved with is given hereafter:
Design of multivariable systems (6L, Dr Guy-Bart Stan)
Optimal control with full information (dynamic programming).
Corresponding lecture notes: Convergence d'une série de Fourier (in French), May 14, 2009. A java applet showing the usefulness and applications of Fourier series is availabe on the Falstad website. This applet should be used in parallel with these lecture notes to illustrate the introduced concepts.
The main theme of this research concerns the global (as opposed to local) analysis and synthesis of stable limit cycle oscillations in dynamical systems. The global analysis of oscillations in systems and networks of interconnected systems is a longstanding problem. Dynamical systems that exhibit robust nonlinear oscillations are called oscillators. Oscillators are ubiquitous in physical, biological, biochemical, and electromechanical systems. Detailed models of oscillators abound in the literature, most frequently in the form of a set of nonlinear differential equations whose solutions robustly converge to a limit cycle oscillation. Local stability analysis is possible by means of Floquet theory but global stability analysis is usually restricted to simple (second order) models. For these simple models, global analysis is performed by using specific low dimensional tools (phase plane methods, Poincaré-Bendixson theorem, etc.) which do not generalise easily to complex (high dimensional) models. As a consequence, global analysis of complex models is quite difficult since there currently exists no general analysis method. This lack of general analysis methods typically forces complex models of oscillators to be studied only through numerical simulation methods. Although numerical simulations of these models may give a first insight into their behaviour, a more in-depth understanding is generally impeded by the complexity of the models and the challenge of rigorous global stability analysis. Moreover, even in the case of simple models, the low dimensional methods used for their analysis do not generalise to the analysis of a network of interconnected oscillators. These considerations show the need for developing general methods that allow the global analysis of oscillators, either isolated or in interconnection. This thesis constitutes the first step towards the development of such a unified oscillators theory. In this aim, this thesis considers an extension of the dissipativity theory introduced by Willems. Nowadays, dissipativity is considered as one of the most general nonlinear (global) stability analysis method for equilibrium points in dynamical systems and networks of interconnected dynamical systems. In this thesis, we show that dissipativity theory can be extended to allow (global) stability analysis of limit cycles in many Lure-type models of oscillators and networks of oscillators. These Lure-type models of oscillators have been named passive oscillators. As the main contributions of this research, we show the implications of this extended dissipativity theory for
the global stability analysis of isolated passive oscillators
the global stability analysis of networks of passive oscillators
the global stability analysis of synchronised oscillations in networks of identical passive oscillators
Furthermore, based on these results, we also propose a limit cycle oscillations synthesis method based on the design of a nonlinear parametric proportional-integral controller aimed at the generation of limit cycle oscillations with large basins of attraction in stabilisable nonlinear systems.
You can download here a summary of my (PhD) F.N.R.S. research project Research.pdf (in french).
Masters Thesis
The translated title of my master thesis is Creation of an autonomous impulse response measurement system for rooms and transducers with different methods - "Réalisation d'une chaine de mesure autonome de la réponse impulsionnelle de salle selon différentes méthodes" (the manuscript is in french).
Abstract:
In this thesis, we compare four of the most used impulse response measurement techniques: Maximum Length Sequence (MLS), Inverse Repeated Sequence (IRS), Time Stretched Pulses, and Logarithmic Sinesweep. These methods are generally used for the measurement of the impulse response of acoustical systems such as transducers, rooms, and binaural impulse responses. The choice of one of these methods depending on the measurement conditions is critical. Therefore an extensive comparison has been realised. This comparison has been done through the implementation and realisation of a complete, fast, reliable, and cheap measurement system. In particular, these different methods have been compared with respect to best achievable signal-to-noise ratio, ease of use, harmonic distortion rejection/measurement, and robustness to measurement conditions (temperature change, impulsive and white noise, etc.). It is shown that in the presence of non white noise, the MLS and IRS techniques are more appropriate. On the contrary, in quiet environments the Logarithmic Sinesweep method is the most accurate: it allows for a direct improvement of the signal-to-noise ratio of up to 30 dB over the other methods, which can be critical for audio virtual reality systems such as auralization systems. Indeed, capturing binaural room impulse responses for high-quality auralization purposes requires a signal-to-noise ratio of more than 90 dB which is unattainable with other measurement techniques due to inherent nonlinearities in the measurement system (especially the loudspeaker), but fairly easy to reach with logarithmic sinesweeps due to the possibility of completely rejecting (and measuring) harmonic distortions. As a consequence, the sinesweep method opens the way for the development of high-quality auralization and sound spatialisation systems, which constitute the basis for advanced audio virtual reality systems.