Ph.D. candidate working on receptor design for metabolic engineering. Instructor at the Canadian Synthetic Biology Education and Research Group (CSBERG) where we teach engineering biology principles to highschoolers and undergraduate students. My project focuses on opioid production and detection in yeast.
The EBRC Student and Postdoc Association is hosting a Data and Engineering Biology: Operating at the Technical Interface panel event, where researchers can connect with professionals who operate and lead within ‘data-centric’ bioengineering companies.
Panelists will discuss 1) transitioning from their PhD to industry, 2) details about their current role, and 3) which data-specific skills are valued in their organization. The discussion will also cover how lab automation, data science, or DevOps platforms drive overall biology objectives at their companies. Join us virtually on December 6th, 2022 (2-3pm ET |11-12pm PT) on GatherTown by registering here.
Click here to view our flyer.
Please contact Eric South (esouth@bu.edu) if you have any questions.
Diana Koulechova, Ph.D.
LinkedIn
Diana is a Senior Scientist at Tierra Biosciences, where she works to improve and expand their cell-free protein synthesis platform, affecting their internal slogan of “Proteins for All.” Prior to joining Tierra, she developed processes and methods in biologics downstream development at the immunoncology company Agenus, and also prototyped a continuous processing system for biologics manufacturing at the pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim. She received her PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from University of California, Berkeley and has been in a variety of biochemistry fields ranging from homing endonucleases, protein folding, and somatosensation in C. elegans.
Ben Gordon, Ph.D.
LinkedIn
Ben is a Senior Director of Research at Asimov Inc. and a Director at the MIT / Broad Synthetic Biology Foundry. He has extensive experience in both managing and leading teams in computer-aided synthetic biology. Ben received a Ph.D. in Computational Biophysical Chemistry from Caltech, where he conducted work on computational protein design and engineering. He later became a Postdoctoral Associate at the Whitehead Institute and then a Principal Scientist and Strategic Collaborations Manager at Agilent Technologies. Ben is also a Program Manager at BioMADE – a Bioindustrial Manufacturing Innovation Institute.
Naomi Handly, Ph.D.
LinkedIn
Naomi is a quantitative cell biologist by training. At Octant, she’s had several roles including recruiting, establishing the OA program, building Octant HQ, demonstrating Octant’s multiplexed platform technology, building cell engineering, and more. Naomi received her PhD from the University of California, San Diego under Roy Wollman quantifying how cells communicate with one another to determine their position in relation to a wound. She’s passionate about bringing science to the public through effective scientific communication and meaningful technological advances.
Marilene Pavan, Ph.D.
LinkedIn
Marilene is a High-Throughput Synthetic Biology Manager at LanzaTech Inc., a carbon recycling technology company, specialized in converting waste carbon oxides into biofuels and chemicals. She is a Biologist with 15+ years of experience in the fields of synthetic biology, metabolic engineering, and biomanufacturing, with previous experience working for chemical industries like Braskem S/A and leading biotech companies as Monsanto S/A, She moved to the US in 2016 to work as Research Fellow at Boston University, later joining Lanzatech in 2019. Her expertise also includes partnerships (prospection and management); people management and mentorship; fundraising; business development; grant, patent, and scientific article writing; project evaluation and management; budget management; scientific consulting; and conference planning and speaking. She holds a master’s degree in Molecular Biology and is also specialized in Strategic Management of Technological Innovation. She is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in the Bioenergy Program of the University of Campinas, UNICAMP – Brazil.
Gaithersburg, MD, USA
Company size: Approximately 3,400 at NIST, approximately 8 in the Cellular Engineering Group
Anticipated number of internship positions: 1 to 2
Opportunity for remote/virtual internship in 2023: No
I am a third year BME PhD candidate at Northwestern University at Neha Kamat’s Lab.
Remote / New York
Company size: 2
Anticipated number of internship positions: 1
Opportunity for remote/virtual internship in 2023: Yes
I am a fourth year Ph.D. student interested in making smarter medicines. My passion for research began as an undergraduate at Boston University in Dr. Xue Han’s neuroengineering lab, and shortly thereafter I learned my affinity for translational spaces while I worked in industry supporting preclinical pharmaceutic science research. After spending several years as a leader and officer in the United States Air Force, it has been my privilege to return to the lab as a graduate student working under my advisors, Dr. Josh Leonard and Dr. Neha Kamat. I’m currently passionate about therapeutic applications of mammalian synthetic biology and extracellular vesicles.
Caroline Ajo-Franklin earned a B.S. in chemistry from Emory University in Atlanta, GA in 1997 and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA in 2004. She trained as Postdoctoral Fellow with Prof. Pam Silver in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, MA from 2005-2007. From 2007-2019, she was a Staff Scientist within the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, CA. In 2019, she joined the faculty of Rice University in Houston, TX as a Professor of BioSciences with joint appointments in Bioengineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Her strongly interdisciplinary, highly collaborative research program focuses on exploring the interface between living organisms and non-living materials and engineering this interface for applications in energy, environment, and biomedicine. Prof. Ajo-Franklin was named as a recipient of the Women@ the Lab award in 2018 and as Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) Scholar in 2019. She is on the Editorial Board of ACS Synthetic Biology and is an Editor at mSystems.
“Life Lab” is a podcast series aimed at kids ages 9-12 and their families. Created in collaboration with Tumble Science Podcast for Kids, “Life Lab” is five episodes about engineering biology to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges, featuring EBRC members and leaders in the engineering biology community. Listen here!
I am a PhD student with an engineering background, and I am fascinated by biology and how we can engineer it with synthetic biology tools. I am specifically interested in intercellular communication and how novel mechanisms can emerge using protein engineering techniques.
This is an invitation-only event.
Register here
The second EBRC Global Forum for Engineering Biology: Review of Synthetic Biology/Bioeconomy National Strategies (EBRC Global Forum 2.0) will be held on the 20th and 21st of February 2023 in Singapore in partnership with the Singapore Consortium for Synthetic Biology (SINERGY). The Forum will bring together a group of global leaders for an international summit focused on national synthetic biology roadmaps and bioeconomy strategies. Our goal is to facilitate presentations and discussions among leading representatives in the field in a relaxed, not-for-attribution forum.
The two-day agenda will include:
Participants are expected to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses. We will facilitate room blocks and/or make recommendations for accommodation, but we will not be covering the costs. We have some limited ability, on a case-by-case basis, to fund travel for those who could not otherwise participate without travel funding assistance.
We are pleased to announce our new conference on synthetic biology. This conference will present how technologies from synthetic biology are delivering innovations across clinical health applications and leading towards improved global health.
The meeting will bring together researchers working on synthetic biology, biotechnology, genomics and medical sciences, along with industry members from pharma and biotech companies, and investors and funders in this growing research area. It will address how the technologies coming out of synthetic biology impact both advanced healthcare in developed countries (e.g. personalised medicines, T-cell therapies) and global wide-impact, such as very low-cost diagnostics and self-replicating living therapies. In addition, the conference aims to provide a reflection on where resources and work are succeeding and where more effort needs to be placed to ensure equitable global outcomes.
We aim to organise this meeting as a hybrid conference – with on-site or virtual attendance. If you would like to be part of these discussions – consider submitting an abstract by 17 January 2023 and register by 14 February (in-person) or 6 March (virtual) 2023.
To promote more inclusive scientific discussions with international colleagues at our conferences, virtual delegates based in Lower and Middle-Income Countries can register for free.
MSc in Plant Sciences at Wageningen University. Visiting student at the Rhee Lab at Carnegie Institution for Science on Stanford University.
