David Shepherd

David Shepherd is a Program Manager for the Department of Homeland Security, in its Science and Technology Directorate. He manages projects that help DHS and the interagency understand threats and risks stemming from biological agents and related advances. His projects range from in-depth studies of threats to creating measures to mitigate those risks and threats, with emphasis on efforts to build intergovernmental awareness and understanding. Recently Mr. Shepherd has started projects to bring the government community and the commercial community closer together to build the collaborative means to address 21st century threats, including risks to the bioeconomy. He also manages the Hazard Knowledge Center within DHS S&T’s Probablistic Awareness of National Threats, Hazards and Risks (PANTHR) program, and is S&T’s liaison to the DOD’s Combatting Terrorism Technical Support Office. Mr. Shepherd has been a federal program manager working in threat and risk awareness and reduction for over two decades. He has degrees in electrical engineering, history, and telecommunications.

Athanasios Mantalaris

Athanasios (Sakis) Mantalaris is Professor in the W.H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech & Emory since August 2018. Prior to his move to Atlanta, he was Professor of BioSystems Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. He received his PhD (2000) in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rochester. His expertise is in modelling of biological systems and bioprocesses with a focus on mammalian cell culture systems, stem cell bioprocessing, and tissue engineering. He has published over 170 original manuscripts, co-edited one book, and holds several patents with several more pending. He has received several awards including the Junior Moulton Award for best paper by the Institute of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) in 2004. In 2012, he was elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical & Biological Engineering and in 2013 he was awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Award. In 2015, he was awarded the Donald Medal by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) for his contributions to biochemical engineering.

YouTube resources for synthetic biology education

Publication Date: September 2019 | Originally published in Synthetic Biology.

EBRC aims to serve as a resource for disseminating educational content and resources for engineering/synthetic biology. This article shares information about the compilation of publicly produced and accessible videos on YouTube for audiences interested in learning more about the field. Six playlists are described in the publication: Synthetic biology overview, Synthetic biology concepts, Synthetic biology teaching or public lectures, Synthetic biology research lectures, Synthetic biology in the lab, and iGEM. These playlists and the resulting publication were created by Aaron Dy, a former EBRC Student and Postdoc Association member, to share with the EBRC and wider community.

Open Postdoc Positions (2020)

EBRC and UC Berkeley are seeking postdoctoral scholars interested in science policy. Postdocs will leverage their previous training to work with EBRC programs and to conduct an individual research project in one of EBRC’s focus areas. Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis with positions open in the last summer / early fall 2020.

#ShutDownSTEM

Dear Colleagues,

We at EBRC have been heartened by the sharing of research and community growth we’ve seen through our virtual seminar series this spring. As such, we are continuing the series through the summer. We invite you to join us! You can see the lineup and register for seminars on our website. When you register, you will receive a confirmation email with a link to join the event. The email also allows you to add seminars to your calendar. The lineup is not yet complete, so do check back regularly.

We would also like you to know that EBRC has decided to postpone tomorrow’s seminar on Enzyme Engineering in recognition of the #ShutDownSTEM movement. We thank tomorrow’s scheduled speakers for their gracious support of this decision and have rescheduled their seminar for Wednesday, June 17 at 1pm Pacific / 4pm Eastern. All current registrants will be automatically transferred; no need to re-register.

#ShutDownSTEM is a grassroots movement creating the time and space for us all to pause from business as usual to consider what actionable steps we can take toward “eradicat[ing] racism and creat[ing] a just, equitable and inclusive STEM field.” The organizers of ShutDownSTEM suggest that during this day, Black academics and STEM professionals take the time they need to heal and prioritize their own needs. The organizers encourage the rest of us to educate ourselves and develop plans for action.

We encourage you to take time tomorrow to think about what you can do individually and in your labs, departments, and organizations to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM. Here are some resources and information from ShutDownSTEM. AAAS has also put together some resources that you might find helpful.

As affirmed last week, EBRC “pledge[s] to leverage our collective will and use our voice to promote required change. We will redouble our efforts to build a united and diverse community that understands the past and identifies continued inequities and injustice in our community; and loudly, persistently, and consistently call out racism in our community.” (Read our full statement here.)

We look forward to actively building that united and diverse community with you, and hope to see you next week when our seminar series resumes in full force with our postponed seminar on Wednesday June 17 in addition to Tuesday June 16’s regularly scheduled seminar.

Sincerely,
Becky Mackelprang

Member Communications Update

Dear Colleagues,

Over the past months, EBRC has been considering ways to improve communication with the membership and find ways to have meaningful engagements in the absence of in person interactions. Along with this, we’ve been considering ways to make it easier to engage in conversations with colleagues in EBRC, especially within our four focus areas.

The BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front)

Trello: We will discontinue using Trello w/ the membership. Those of you on current boards will be removed in the coming days. Please note that some previously sent calendar invites may contain links that may be inactive.

Slack: All EBRC members are invited to join our Slack workspace. Colleagues from industry and government can join Slack at this link using your institutional email address. Individual members are automatically invited. If the email address you primarily use is not listed or you have any other issues, please contact helix@ebrc.org.

Key elements of the EBRC Slack workspace:

The EBRC Slack is open to EBRC Individual Members (not students / postdocs) and employees from EBRC Member Companies & Government agencies. EBRC Student & Postdoc Association leadership (SPA Board) are the only lab members on Slack.
EBRC Council & Working Group members are strongly encouraged to join. Discussion and links around working topics will be included in relevant channels.
Interact with colleagues across the engineering biology ecosystem between events.
For further details see our EBRC Slack one-pager.

Google: We will continue to use G Suite (Drive, Docs, Sheets) as we have been.

Email Newsletter: We’re starting a regular monthly newsletter.

More Detail:

Trello: We currently use Trello extensively with the EBRC staff, but it’s seen mixed use with the working groups and committees. The EBRC Slack workspace is intended to replace Trello’s functionality as a platform for discussion, some working group announcements, and links to pertinent documents.

G Suite: EBRC pays for G Suite services (at ebrc.org) and we use it extensively. We plan to keep using it with the working groups and committees and moving some of the positive aspects of Trello to it. For example, dynamic meeting agendas can be captured in a Google Doc vs. Trello card. These documents will be linked in Slack. See next.

Slack: Engagement across the membership, and with the EBRC staff, is important. We would like to try to enable more dialog across the membership on relevant topics. We tried to use Trello cards for this, but it hasn’t worked as robustly as we’d like. With an increasing number of labs / companies using Slack, we will use this platform for discussions in each of the four program areas, and could use it for discussion with (for example) the EBRC Council.

Email Newsletter: We will be putting out a monthly newsletter, starting mid-June. The newsletter will provide useful updates and announcements from EBRC and will supplement information provided through other ways. We realize that some companies won’t be able to use various technology solutions (e.g., Slack or Google), and this will always be accessible.

We look forward to continued engagement and dialogue with you.

Best,
Doug

Statement from EBRC

The EBRC community expresses our sadness, outrage, and pain in the wake of the murders of George Floyd. We stand with those around the country calling for justice and the urgent need to address the deep-seated systemic and institutional racism in our society. Long-standing and persistent anti-Black racism, including in the scientific and engineering community, must be addressed – now.

Diversity, inclusion, and anti-discrimination have been core values of the EBRC since our creation. But we, as an organization, extended community, and society, have not done enough to address the lasting and persistent stains of racism. We hear our Black members, colleagues, friends, and families that experience systemic racism, discrimination, and injustice directly.

We often ask why do we have so few Black colleagues in STEM? We need to be asking what can we do to ensure we have more Black colleagues in STEM? We don’t have to stand by while long-term institutional racism persists in our community. And we won’t.

We call for concerted action to promote justice, equality, and inclusion. We pledge to leverage our collective will and use our voice to promote required change. We will redouble our efforts to build a united and diverse community that understands the past and identifies continued inequities and injustice in our community; and loudly, persistently, and consistently call out racism in our community.

EBRC believes that we can advance engineering biology, and society, through coordination and collaboration. That must include our Black colleagues and doing what we can to ensure their numbers grow and they have the space to thrive.

David Shepherd

Athanasios Mantalaris

Sam Raj