Profiles

  • Anna Crumbley

    Anna M. Crumbley is an NRC Postdoctoral Research Associate in the BioTechnology Division of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Chemical Biological Center (CCDC CBC). She is working to develop efficient scale up processes for synthetically modified microbes generating bio-based materials. Annie received her doctorate from Rice University, in Houston, TX, and her bachelor’s from The University of Alabama, in Tuscaloosa, AL, both in Chemical and Biological/Biomolecular Engineering.

  • Xinran Lian

    Xinran is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of working under the supervision of Rama Ranganathan and Andrew Ferguson. She works on integrating deep-learning generative models and high-throughput assays to design novel proteins. Outside of research, she is an amateur artist and birder.

  • Ithai Rabinowitch

    Ithai started his academic path studying Industrial Engineering at Tel Aviv University, acquiring quantitative approaches to the analysis and design of complex systems. He then steered to neuroscience, embarking on a Ph.D. at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, investigating theoretically how the morphology and structure of neurons determine the dynamic interactions between synaptic inputs. Ithai then continued with postdoctoral training in Cambridge, UK and in Seattle, USA, this time doing experimental work on neural circuits in the tiny nematode worm C. elegans. Bringing together his passion for neurobiology and engineering, Ithai contributed to establishing a neuro-synthetic biology. Ithai joined the Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine in late 2017 where his lab is continuously studying and designing C. elegans neural circuits.

  • Thomas Plocek

    Focused on using synthetic biology to manufacture fragrance and flavor ingredients. Managed the project to make the first musk ingredient (Ambrettolide HC Supreme) made from sugar on a commercial basis starting with an intermediate produced in a 135,000 liter fermenter.

  • Philip Ferro

  • Mikael Elias

    Mikael Elias received a B.S. (2004) and a M.S. (2006) degree from the Universite de Lorraine (France) and a Ph.D. degree (2009) from the Universite Aix–Marseille (France). Mikael joined the Weizmann Institute of Science (Rehovot, Israel) as a FEBS postdoctoral fellow (2009) and later (2011) as a Marie Curie Fellow. In 2014, Mikael joined the University of Minnesota (USA) and is now associate professor in the Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics Dpt, as well as the BioTechnology Institute . The Elias lab research lies at the interfaces of biology, chemistry and microbiology. It focuses on the atomic-level understanding of the molecular determinants underlining molecular recognition, engineering enzymes and using molecular tools to control microbial behaviors.

  • Seongkyu Yoon

    Seongkyu Yoon is Professor in the Francis College of Engineering at the University of Massachusetts (UMass), Lowell. Currently Dr. Yoon is working as a co-director of Massachusetts Biomanufacturing Center, is the UMass site director of the National Science Foundation Industry–University Cooperative Research Centers Program Research Center (NSF-IUCRC), the Advanced Mammalian Biomanufacturing Innovation Center (AMBIC), and the UMass lead for ManufacturingUSA in Biomanufacturing (NIIMBL). His research interests include process system engineering, synthetic and systems biotechnology, regulatory sciences, and biomanufacturing innovation. He is leading a systems and synthetic biology research group while conducting research in systems and synthetic biotechnology, life science informatics, and regulatory sciences with goals to develop an innovative biomanufacturing platform of protein-cell-gene biotherapeutics. Dr. Yoon received his PhD in chemical engineering from McMaster University, Canada, and his MBA from Babson College.

  • Elizabeth Bayha

    Betsy Bayha is on Zymergen’s Learning and Development team, managing programs aimed at developing leadership skills for employees.

    She graduated from San Francisco State University in May 2020 with a Master of Science degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology, returning to school after a ten-year career as a documentary film producer for Lucasfilm and PBS.

    Betsy also worked at the UCSF School of Medicine on the Bridges curriculum transformation initiative for first-and second-year Med-school students. She has an undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

  • S Venkata Mohan

    Dr. S. Venkata Mohan is working as a Scientist in CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT), Hyderabad since 1998. He has done his B.Tech (Civil Engineering), M.Tech (Environmental Engineering) and Doctoral research in engineering discipline from Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati. He was Visiting Professor at Kyoto University (2005), Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Fellow at Technical University of Munich, Germany (2001-02) and Kyung Hee International Fellow, South Korea (2018). Dr Mohan research majorly intended to understand and respond to the human-induced environmental change in the framework of sustainability in the interface of environment and bioengineering. He specifically explored the potential of negatively valued waste as viable feedstock for harnessing clean energy and biomaterials by developing novel and sustainable technologies through nexus approach. His main research interests are in the areas of Advanced Waste Remediation, Aciodogenesis, Microbial Electrogenesis, Photosynthesis, CO2 biosequestration, Circular Bioeconomy, Self-regenerative systems and Biorefinery. He also undertook various research projects associated with societal relevance and industrial/consultancy projects in the area of environment and management. He has successfully demonstrated the production of Low carbon (Bio)Hydrogen with simultaneous waste remediation at pilot scale and established a first of its kind waste biorefinery platform. Dr Mohan authored more than 350 research articles, 60 chapters for books, edited 4 books and has 9 patents. His publications have more than 18,900 citations with an h-index of 75 (Google Scholar). He has guided 27 PhDs, 2 M.Phils and more than 100 M.Tech/B.Tech/M.Sc students.

    Dr Mohan is recipient of the coveted ‘Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (SSB) Prize’ for the year 2014 in Engineering Sciences from the Government of India. He also received several awards and honors, which include, ‘DBT-Tata Innovation Fellow 2018’ by Department

  • Renee Wegrzyn

    Renee is a Vice President of Business Development at Ginkgo Bioworks. Prior to Ginkgo, she was Program Manager in the Biological Technologies Office (BTO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where she leveraged the tools of synthetic biology and gene editing to enhance biosecurity, support the domestic bioeconomy, and outpace infectious disease. Her DARPA portfolio included the Living Foundries: 1000 Molecules, Safe Genes, Preemptive Expression of Protective Alleles and Response Elements (PREPARE), and Detect it with Gene Editing (DIGET) programs. Prior to joining DARPA as a PM, Renee led teams in private industry in the areas of biosecurity, gene therapies, emerging infectious disease, neuromodulation, synthetic biology, and diagnostics. Renee holds a PhD and BS in Applied Biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology, was a Fellow in the Center for Health Security Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative (ELBI), and completed her postdoctoral training as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow in Heidelberg, Germany.

  • George Lu

    George Lu obtained his undergraduate degree at the University of Alberta in Canada, before moving to the UC San Diego for his Ph.D. study on protein structural biology. He then became a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Mikhail Shapiro at Caltech, where he focused on the engineering of gas-filled protein nanostructures for biological imaging and cellular control. Dr. Lu was previously awarded the Young Investigator of the Year from the World Molecular Imaging Society for his work on the development of acoustically erasable MRI reporter genes. The independent lab was newly established in the Bioengineering Department at Rice University in 2020 with the support of the NIH Pathway-to-independence (K99/R00) and the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) Scholar awards.

  • Marilene Pavan

    Currently working as Scientist at LanzaTech Inc., I am a professional with 12+ years of experience in the fields of synthetic biology, metabolic engineering and biomanufacturing. Expertise also include: partnerships (prospection and management), people management and mentorship, fundraising, business development, writing of grants, patents, and scientific articles, project management, budget management, scientific consulting, planning of scientific conferences, speaker.

  • Peter Chung

    Peter J. Chung is an incoming Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Southern California, beginning January 2021.

    He was previously a Kadanoff-Rice Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago studying proteins involved in Parkinson’s disease. He received his PhD in physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and undergraduate degrees in physics and materials engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

  • Ying Wang

    I am a postdoctoral scholar working in the Northen Group at Berkeley Lab. I received my Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2019. I am broadly interested in addressing soil health and sustainable agriculture under global change.

  • 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.

  • Tetsuhiro Harimoto

    I received my BS in pharmacology and toxicology from the University of Toronto. Prior to graduate school, I worked at Morgan Stanley as an equity research associate. I joined my current lab in 2016 with the support from the Honjo fellowship (2016-2020) and NIH NCI F99/K00 award (2020-).

  • Nathan Johns

    I am originally from Michigan where I earned a B.S. in Microbiology from Michigan State University. Shortly after I worked with Harris Wang and George Church at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute. I did my PhD research in Systems Biology at Columbia University with Harris Wang. My research was focused on developing high-throughput methods for characterizing regulatory sequences in diverse bacterial species. In 2019 I began postdoctoral research with Michael Fischbach at Stanford University where I am developing genetic tools for human commensal bacterial species.

  • Emily Fulk

    I am a PhD student in the Systems, Synthetic and Physical Biology program at Rice University, where I develop synthetic biology tools to understand how microbes in soils and marine sediments interact with their environments. I’m jazzed about the potential for synthetic biology to provide new options for low-carbon energy, biodegradable materials, and sustainable agriculture as well as a better understanding of Earth processes. I hope to continue in these fields throughout my career.

    While at Rice, I founded a graduate student group dedicated to promoting sustainable practices on campus and have been active in pursuing science communication and science policy experiences. Prior to graduate school, I graduated with a BS in chemical engineering from Northwestern and spent a year working at the National Renewable Energy Lab.

    My non-science alter ego specializes in educational explosions at the Houston Museum of Natural Science (where I volunteer as a docent), climbing rocks, and eating lots of snacks.

  • Heba Sailem

    Dr Heba Sailem is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and the Big Data Institute. Her expertise transcends computer vision, image informatics, and system genetics which allows her to bring a unique perspective to tackling important challenges in cancer biology. She has pioneered the use of computational methods for knowledge discovery from large scale imaging data. Her work includes developing image analysis algorithms, image informatics, data visualisation and integration.

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