Akos Nyerges

Akos Nyerges’ research targets healthcare and biotechnology with bacterial synthetic biology. He earned his PhD in Hungary while working with Csaba Pal, and currently, he works as a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. George M. Church at Harvard Medical School.
Akos is interested in advancing genome editing to accelerate evolutionary processes and thus support synthetic genomics and drug development. To this aim, he has so far developed tools to perform precise genome engineering in human pathogenic bacteria and hosts for microbial fermentation. His PhD focused on the genome editing-based prediction of antibiotic resistance and the exploitation of resistance mechanisms for more-effective therapeutic solutions.
In the course of his postdoctoral research, he is now applying accelerated laboratory evolution to understand the design-principles of functional genomes and engineer radically recoded chromosomes.

Daniel Cetnar

David Ding

Kailyn Doiron

I am a first-generation college student with a background in cell and molecular biology and a passion for synthetic biology research, mentoring, and science outreach. Currently I am a graduate student in the Systems, Synthetic and Quantitative Biology PhD program at Harvard, but previously I worked at Novartis as a post-baccalaureate scholar in a genomic screening lab. I am very interested in working towards the clinical translation of synthetic biology ideas such as genetic circuits and theranostic cells.

Rowena Aguilar

Current graduate student working on heterologous expression of plant metabolites. Experienced Upstream Process Development scientist for rapid generation of therapeutics and vaccines in pre-clinical, clinical studies and commercial production. Specializes in early process development from large scale transient expression, cell line development and master cell banking through to fermentation.

Christopher Vaiana

Juan Jose Vasquez Ospina

I am a biologist interested in applied research related to genetic/organisms engineering, biotechnology and synthetic biology. I obtained a bachelor degree in Biology and a master degree in Microbiology in Colombia. After graduating from my master’s, I worked for several years in the industry and afterwards I studied a PhD in Germany focusing in the development of molecular tools in human parasites. Presently, I am a postdoctoral associate at MIT in the laboratory of Professor Jacquin Niles where I work on the design and validation of new tools to manipulate the genome of the causal agent of malaria.

Jiefei Wang

Postdoc, University of Pittsburgh, 2019-present
PhD, Indiana University, 2013-2019
BS, University of Science and Technology of China, 2009-2013

Matthew Incha

Attended UW-Madison where I received a BS in Molecular Biology. While at UW, I began research in the Pfleger Lab where I became interested in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology. Currently I am a graduate student in the Keasling Lab at UC-Berkeley. I am now engineering biochemical pathways to create novel compounds with broad applications.

Stephanie Breunig

Stephanie is from Milwaukee, WI and received her undergraduate degree in chemistry from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. There, she worked on organic chemistry method development, and synthesized potential inhibitors of the APOBEC3 family of cytidine deaminases. She sought an escape from the brutal midwestern winters by moving to Southern California, where she now must contend with brutal traffic jams. Stephanie is currently a graduate student at Caltech, where she works on protein engineering in the lab of Professor David Tirrell.

Calin Plesa

Calin Plesa is an Assistant Professor in the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact at the University of Oregon. He received a BASc in Engineering Physics from Simon Fraser University, a MSc in Nanoscience from Chalmers University of Technology, and a PhD from Delft University of Technology in Bionanoscience. As an HFSP Fellow in the Kosuri lab at UCLA he developed DropSynth, a low-cost scalable method to synthesize thousands of genes. Calin holds a CASI award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and started his lab at the University of Oregon in 2019.

The Plesa lab focuses on accelerating the pace at which we understand and engineer biological protein-based systems. Towards this end, we develop new technologies for gene synthesis, multiplex functional assays, in-vivo mutagenesis, and genotype-phenotype linkages for a number of different research areas and applications. These allow us to both access the huge sequence diversity present in natural systems as well as carry out testing of rationally designed hypotheses encoded onto DNA at much larger scales than previously possible.

Rashmi Raj

My name is Rashmi and I joined Northwestern as a postdoc in March 2020. I’m originally from Singapore where I did my PhD at the National University of Singapore, but I’ve also spent time in the United Kingdom where I was an undergrad at University College London. I’m a biochemist by training and currently work on stress response in bacterial metabolic engineering.

Kyle Sander

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Adam P. Arkin. I perform gene function discovery and genetic engineering of heterotrophic bacteria that make poly-hydroxybutyrate, a form of plastic. I also design and engineer rhizosphere microbiomes for the plant host Oryza sativa (rice). My work is done as part of the CUBES project (https://cubes.space)

Daniel Greene

I am a postdoctoral researcher and fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, where I work with Dr. Megan Palmer to study the risks and potential of synthetic biology for society. I use a combination of data science, survey research, policy analysis, and qualitative methods to help us understand our collective options for regulating synthetic biology. Previously, I was a social psychologist and data scientist at the Project for Education Research That Scales, where I worked on the Engagement Project – a professional development program to help teachers make their classrooms more engaging, supportive, and meaningful for all students. I completed a Ph.D. in Education at Stanford in 2018 under Prof. Carol Dweck. In my spare time I’m part of the Effective Altruism community.

Heather Deter

Dr. Heather Deter is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). She first discovered synthetic biology as a graduate student under the supervision of Dr. Nicholas C. Butzin at Virginia Tech and later South Dakota State University, where her research focused on multilevel regulation of synthetic systems and antibiotic tolerance. Dr. Deter has since graduated and moved to UIUC where she works under the supervision of Dr. Ting Lu and studies how synthetic systems interact with and affect host networks. In the future, Dr. Deter intends on becoming a university professor, which will allow her to teach and run her own synthetic biology research group.

Heather Shepherd

I am a second year biochemistry graduate student at the Unviversity of Notre Dame. I graduated with a B.S. in Biology from Saint Mary’s College, which is crossed the street from Notre Dame, as a first-generation college student. I have strong family ties to the area, which is why I focused my schooling here. I own my home where I run a small farm comprised of 2 horses, 4 dogs, 4 cats, 10 ducks and 103 chickens.

C Wadler

Diego Alba Burbano

Heather Lukas

I am a PhD candidate at Caltech in medical engineering studying biosensors, wearable electronics, and continuous diagnostics. My thesis project will involve developing a histamine sensor for continuous monitoring in sweat samples for various health applications. I completed my Bachelors of Science in biomedical engineering at Cornell University in spring of 2019. I plan to pursue a career in the medical device industry upon completion of my PhD.

Rohit Satija

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