Profiles

  • Mark Mimee

    Mark Mimee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. His interest in microbial life began in Montreal, Canada, where he completed his Bachelor of Science in Microbiology & Immunology at McGill University. Inspired by the nascent field of synthetic biology, Mark pursued studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, completing his PhD in Microbiology with Dr. Timothy Lu as an HHMI International Student Fellow and a Qualcomm Innovation Fellow. His research focuses on developing strategies to precisely engineer the activity and composition of the microbiota. His long-term vision is to implement these technologies to chart new basic and translational studies to exploit the microbiota for human health.

  • Jens Plassmeier

    Jens is currently Sr. Team Leader for Biobased Chemicals at BASF Corp. with expert knowledge in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology. Before joining BASF, Jens was holding the position of Director of Innovations at Conagen Inc, where he was responsible for strain engineering and fermentation engineering, along with innovation management. During his professional career, Jens and his teams were able to successfully engineer and scale-up multiple microbial strains to produce various molecule classes. Prior, Jens was first Postdoc and then Research Scientist at MIT, where he was also working on strain and process engineering, mainly for biofuel production. Jens got his PhD from Bielefeld University in Germany. Jens was consultant to biotech companies and panel reviewer for the DOE. He is active editorial board member for multiple journals in the biotechnology/synthetic biology space.

  • Kok Zhi Lee

    Kok Zhi is a postdoctoral fellow in Fuzhong Zhang’s lab at Washington University in St. Louis. He repurposes/engineers proteins in nature for biotechnology applications, tackling material synthesis and sustainability challenges. He completed his Ph.D. in Bioengineering under Kevin Solomon at Purdue University, where he characterized prokaryotic argonautes for novel gene-editing tool development without sequence-motif restrictions. Outside of research, Kok Zhi serves as a Social Chair in EBRC SPA, dedicated to creating diverse and inclusive environments for networking and career developments in the synthetic biology community.

  • Merja Penttilä

    Merja Penttilä is a research professor in biotechnology at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, and an adjunct professor in synthetic biology at Aalto University. Her expertise is on engineering of microbes for the production of fuels, chemicals, enzymes and materials. She has acted as the director of the Academy of Finland CoE on White biotechnology – Green chemistry, and is a PI in the current CoE on Molecular engineering of biosynthetic hybrid materials (Hyber). She has coordinated a large strategic project “Living Factories: Synthetic Biology for a sustainable Bioeconomy”, and led many EU level and industrial projects. She is acting an advisory board or committee member of a number of international organisations. She is the initiator of Synbio Powerhouse, an ecosystem to promote biotechnology and synthetic biology in Finland and beyond. She has total of 334 publications, 14 457 Web of science citations, and h-index of 70.

  • Leonard Brizuela

    Dr. Brizuela conducted his graduate research at CSHL and postdoctoral work at Merck Sharp & Dohme Research Labs. He later took a scientist position at the EMBL and subsequently moved to Mitotix Inc. to work on cancer drug discovery. There he rose through the ranks of the organization, from senior scientist to head of the kinase inhibitor program and Director of Biochemistry across all drug discovery programs. He then moved to Harvard Medical School where he was Associate Director of the Harvard Institute of Proteomics as well as Director of the Proteomics Center for the Biodefense program at Harvard (NERCE) and faculty member of BCMP.
    He joint Agilent Technologies, where he acted as Director of Science and Technology for the Genomics and Life Sciences groups and currently works under the CTO office as Associate Diretor of University Relations and External Research. Dr. Brizuela has produced influential work and numerous publications in the areas of cell cycle regulation, cancer biology, drug discovery and genomics. He is experienced with technology development/innovation. He has proven ability to build and execute scientific, technology development and product development activities, as well as to build collaborations and outsourcing within and across organizations.

  • Jason Zwolak

    My professional training started at Virginia Tech during my masters and PhD under the guidance of my co-advisors: John Tyson of the Biology Department and Layne Watson of the Computer Science department. This was a unique beginning to have co-advisors and I believe it gave me a unique understanding of interdisciplinary work.

    As a professional I have since continued a unique path where I balance work, life, and continuing education. I never stop learning the latest tools, the latest paradigms, the latest techniques, and the latest patterns for designing and creating the best software we, as human beings, know how to create. This is my professional passion.

  • Jared DeCoste

    Dr. DeCoste is a Research Chemist at CCDC Chemical and Biological Center (formerly the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC)) leading the Biological Engineering for Applied Materials Solutions (BEAMS) program. His last 9 years of experience at ECBC have been in the Chem/Bio Protection Division mainly focusing on novel materials development for the remediation of chemical threats. His work has led to more than 50 manuscripts, 50 oral presentations, and 5 patents, on his research. His work has been highlighted by periodicals/news outlets including Chemical and Engineering News, Materials Today, Fox News, Science Daily, CBRNE World, and Nature. Dr. DeCoste has been recognized by his superiors and peers through numerous awards including the ACS Maryland Chemist of the Year Award, Achievement Medal for Civilian Service, ECBC’s Rookie of the Year for Outstanding Early Career Achievement, ECBC’s Safety Award, ECBC’s STEM Volunteer Award, Leidos’s Publication Prize for Physical sciences, and the 2018 Md ACS Chemist of the Year Award. His work in the BEAMS program has been a highlight of his career thus far as it has allowed him to collaborate and innovate in ways that only working in a highly interdisciplinary field allows. His work has always revolved around finding unique ways to progress science through working together, as evidenced in the pride he takes in aiding others through mentorship, encouraging collaboration, and developing opportunities to learn and evolve in the ever changing scientific landscape.

  • Sam Weiss Evans

    Sam’s work focuses on the governance of security concerns and other broader social aspects of emerging research and innovation, especially biology. He is currently a Senior Policy Advisor for the US National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, where he leads the Commission’s work on safety, security, and responsible innovation. Previously, Sam was at Harvard University, in a joint appointment with the School of Government and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

  • Rebecca Nugent

    Rebecca is an experienced R&D executive focused on commercializing research in the biotech industry enabling applications such as cell & gene therapies, synthetic biology and genomics. Dr. Nugent is currently the VP of HTP Operations at Tessera Therapeutics. Prior to Tessera, she led the research department at Synthego, developing novel technologies for genome engineering with a focus on human cell and gene therapies. Prior to Synthego, Rebecca spent six years at Twist Bioscience where she focused on the development of Synthetic Biology and Next-Generation Sequencing Target Enrichment (NGS TE) products. She did her Post-Doc at New England Biolabs and received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Southern California, where she studied yeast genetics with an emphasis on genomic stability.

  • Blake Simmons

    Dr. Simmons is the Director of the Biological Systems and Engineering Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (biosciences.lbl.gov). He also serves as the Chief Science and Technology Officer and Vice-President of the Deconstruction Division at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (www.jbei.org), a DOE Office of Science funded project tasked with the development and realization of next-generation “drop-in” biofuels and bioproducts produced from sustainable, non-food lignocellulosic biomass. He is also the Project Management Lead for the DOE Agile BioFoundry (https://agilebiofoundry.org/).

  • Ian Wheeldon

    Dr. Wheeldon is an Associate Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Riverside (UCR). He is also the director of UCR’s Center for Industrial Biotechnology. Dr. Wheeldon received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University in 2009 and completed two years of postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. He received a Master’s of Applied Science from the Royal Military College of Canada, and a Bachelor’s of Applied Science from Queen’s University, Canada. Dr. Wheeldon’s laboratory focuses on synthetic biology for chemical synthesis.

  • Tara Deans

    Dr. Tara Deans received her PhD from Boston University in Biomedical Engineering. Following her postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University, she became an Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Utah. Currently, Dr. Deans runs an applied mammalian synthetic biology laboratory where her lab focuses on building novel genetic tools to study the mechanisms of stem cell differentiation for the purpose of directing their cell fate decisions. Recently, Dr. Deans received three prestigious awards to support this area of research: the NSF CAREER Award, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award, and the NIH Trailblazer Award. In addition to her research, Dr. Deans was recently named a STEM Ambassador in the STEM Ambassador Program (STEMAP) at the University of Utah to engage underrepresented groups in STEM fields.

  • Todd Treangen

    Todd J. Treangen, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of
    Computer Science at Rice University. Prior to joining Rice, Dr. Treangen was
    a Research Scientist at the University of Maryland College Park and led the
    Bioinformatics group at the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures
    Center (NBACC) in Frederick, MD. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science
    in 2008 from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Barcelona, Spain). His
    research group focuses on solving large-scale computational problems
    specific to computational biology, with focus on developing robust software
    tools targeted towards biothreat screening, infectious disease monitoring,
    and microbial forensics.

  • Elizabeth Pitts

    Elizabeth A. Pitts is an assistant professor in the University of Pittsburgh’s Composition, Literacy, Pedagogy, and Rhetoric program. She received her PhD in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media from North Carolina State University with a minor in Genetic Engineering and Society, and she also holds a BA and MA in English from Georgetown University.

    Elizabeth’s research blends rhetorical theory, organizational studies, and science studies to examine how technologies influence the nature of professional work and professional identity. Her current book project offers insights into a movement to make the coding of DNA as pervasive as the coding of software. By drawing parallels between the composition of genetically engineered organisms and the composition of persuasive speech and writing, the book facilitates humanistic inquiry into the material practices undertaken in laboratories.

    Elizabeth enjoys interdisciplinary collaboration and has co-authored with geneticists, ecologists, and policy scholars. Her work is informed by her decade of experience as a professional writer and speechwriter at the White House, the US Department of Education, and the Pew Charitable Trusts.

  • David Nielsen

    My research has been in the area of biotechnology for 18 years, the last 13 of which has been focussed on metabolic engineering as well as synthetic biology. We are interested in developing novel pathways and strains for the bioproduction of value added chemicals, as well as new tools for improving such efforts. Current projects are focussed on engineering new pathways for non-natural aromatic chemicals, application of rational engineering and adaptive laboratory evolution to improve strain tolerance, engineering cyanobacteria for the photosynthetic production of biofuels and biochemicals, development of tools for genetic engineering in cyanobacteria (e.g., new plasmids and promoter systems, CRIPSR-based gene editing tools, markerless recombineering methods, etc.), and the engineering of and investigation of synthetic microbial communities.

  • James Chappell

    Our lab focuses on understanding how the biomolecule RNA can be designed to create synthetic regulators of gene expression—allowing for the manipulation of natural cellular processes to elicit deeper biological understanding and for the engineering of new synthetic cellular functions. As such our lab focuses both on the creation of new gene regulatory tools and their application.

  • Robert Egbert

    Dr. Robert Egbert (Rob) is a staff scientist in the Biological Sciences Division at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Dr. Egbert is an expert in bacterial genetic circuit design and genome engineering. He received dual-BS degrees in electrical engineering and Korean at Brigham Young University, a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Washington working with Eric Klavins, and a joint appointment as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with Adam Arkin. He currently leads a DOE program in Secure Biosystems Design on novel genome remodeling approaches to control the persistence of engineered functions in the environment, is Integration Lead for a PNNL-led team for the DARPA Friend or Foe program, and is Co-PI for data-driven synthetic biology within the DARPA Synergistic Discovery and Design program. Dr. Egbert is also the Science Lead for an PNNL internal investment in synthetic biology and biosecurity. Outside of work, Rob loves adventures with his wife and three children: swimming, kayaking, and river rafting in lakes and rivers of the mountain West; backpacking in the Pacific Northwest, Utah red rocks, and Canadian Rocky Mountains; and pinball. Rob also enjoys playing competitive ultimate frisbee.

  • Marcella Gomez

    Marcella M. Gomez is an assistant professor at UC Santa Cruz in the department of Applied Mathematics. She received her PhD from Caltech in 2015 and a B.S. from UC Berkeley in 2009; both degrees in Mechanical Engineering. Her research interests include a dynamical systems and control theoretic approach to synthetic and systems biology.

  • Alessandra Eustáquio

    Alessandra has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy of the University of Illinois at Chicago since August 2015. She also holds an appointment with the Center for Biomolecular Sciences. The Eustaquio laboratory aims to contribute to drug discovery and development from natural products. The Eustaquio lab uses open-source bioinformatics tools to predict the biosynthetic potential of bacteria based on their genome sequences. We then carry out genetic engineering to activate expression of silent genes and obtain the encoded natural products. We are also interested in developing synthetic biology tools to facilitate access to natural and engineered compounds. Before joining the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago, Alessandra was a Principal Scientist at Pfizer, Medicinal Chemistry, Natural Products group. Prior to that, she had done postdoctoral training at the University of California San Diego, obtained a PhD in Pharmaceutical Biology from the University of Tuebingen, Germany, and a B.Sc. in Pharmacy & Biochemistry from the University of São Paulo, Brazil.

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