Profiles

  • Fan Hong

    Fan is interested in developing biomolecular tools to dive into the complexity of biology (decoding and regulating cellular functions on the molecular basis at the tissue scale). Before joining the faculty at the University of Florida, Fan was a Postdoc Fellow at Wyss Institute at Harvard University where he worked on the DNA advanced in situ spatial multi-omics (e.g., DNA thermal-plex) in the Yin Lab. Thermal-plex enables multiplexed fluorescent imaging of biomolecules with unprecedented feasibility and speed for tissue biospecimen analysis. Fan completed his Ph.D. at Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University and worked in the Yan Lab, Green Lab, and Sulc Lab, where he developed methods to program nucleic acids in vitro (e.g., Framework DNA nanoarchitecture), in vivo (e.g., SNIPR), and in silico (e.g., crowder-oxDNA) to address grand questions with chemical approaches to biology. Those methods enable the control of nucleic acid folding into complex framework biomolecular architectures from the nanoscale to the macroscale, the regulation of cellular gene expression based on the single nucleotide mutation in cells with de-novo-designed RNA riboregulators, and the investigation of the biophysical behavior of nucleic acid folding in the crowding cellular environment with molecular dynamics.

  • Priyanka Nain

    I am Priyanka Nain, currently working as a postdoctoral researcher in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at the University of Delaware. Here, my research revolves around finding innovative solutions that integrate synthetic biology, sustainability, and healthcare. My Ph.D. is from the Chemical Engineering Department at IIT Delhi, where I was developing strategies to improve the production of biotherapeutic proteins. I am deeply passionate about sustainable biomanufacturing. I thrive on the scientific challenges involved in scaling up bioprocesses, from optimizing cell lines and media to fine-tuning fermentation feeding and control strategies, and analytical methods. But I also care deeply about the broader impact – delivering products that are both effective and accessible and manufactured in the interest of the environment.

  • Miguel Jimenez

    Miguel Jimenez is an Assistant Professor at Boston University, where he runs el Microbial Integration Group. The group integrates engineered microorganisms with mechanical and electronic devices for applications in human health, agriculture, the environment, and entertainment.

  • Sarah Hartley

    Technology governance is concerned with the decisions that shape how technology is funded, developed, regulated, tested, and deployed – it determines technology trajectories. My social science research takes a critical look at the politics and power in these governance decisions, particularly in efforts to open-up these expert spaces to diverse knowledge, values and visions through engagement and knowledge co-production – features that have become prevalent in technology governance in recent years. I’m particularly interested in the value tensions that exist in and between science and society when governance decisions are opened-up and, importantly, how to manage these tensions more effectively. I focus on the development and risk assessment of emerging technologies, particularly the biotechnologies (gene drive, genome-editing, genetic modification of animals, especially insects) and AL/digital technology applications in environment and agriculture. I am Co-Director of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Environmental Intelligence.

  • Willy A. Valdivia-Granda

    I am the founder of Orion Integrated Biosciences. I lead a group of researchers developing new techniques to decode microbes’ genomic information and map short DNA fragments to their source of origin, virulence, and possible genetic manipulation. My research includes the use of artificial intelligence algorithms including large language models, neural networks, and generative adversarial networks to design a new generation of biotentities for biotechnology applications. I also lead the advancement of a new generation of analytical tools for risk assessment and early warning of biothreats that can affect health, trade, and national security. This work includes processing large data sets from multiple sources, including geospatial, trade, news outlets, security, and economic signals and indicators using machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms. I have research projects with collaborators in several countries within the European Union, New Zealand, Guinea, Ukraine, Colombia, and Brazil. I serve as a subject matter expert and adviser to several funding agencies and policymakers within the U.S. government, and Hong Kong Research Council overseeing funding programs of more than USD 200 Million. This role not only underscores the significance of our work but also facilitates the integration of computer science principles into the development of solutions for pressing global challenges in health and security.

  • Alexander Refsnes Andrassy

    Research in cell culture models and synthetic biology innovations

  • Lynn Rothschild

    Lynn Rothschild is passionate astrobiologist focusing on the origin and evolution of life on Earth and elsewhere, while at the same time pioneering the use of engineering biology to enable space exploration. Her research focuses on how life, particularly microbes, has evolved in the context of the physical environment, both here and potentially elsewhere. A graduate of Yale, Indiana University and Brown, she has brought her imagination and creativity to the burgeoning field of synthetic biology, articulating a vision for the future of synthetic biology as an enabling technology for NASA’s missions, including human space exploration and astrobiology. From 2011 through 2019 she served as the faculty advisor of the Stanford-Brown iGEM team. Her lab tested these plans in space on in the PowerCell secondary payload on the DLR EuCROPIS satellite. A past-president of the Society of Protozoologists, she is a fellow of the Linnean Society of London, The California Academy of Sciences and the Explorer’s Club. She was awarded the Isaac Asimov Award from the American Humanist Association, and the Horace Mann Award from Brown University. She has been a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) fellow seven times. Lynn was formerly Professor (Adjunct) at Stanford where she taught “Astrobiology and Space Exploration” for a decade.

  • Mary Tomagan

    Mary Tomagan is currently the Senior Administrator at EBRC, providing operation support and event planning. Prior to her position at EBRC, Mary was the Business Office and Operations Coordinator at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA and a Membership Program Manager at the American Academy of Ophthalmology. She is a soccer and baseball mom of two very active boys and a foodie.

  • Ian Blaby

    Dr Blaby received his PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK, as a Medical Research Council (MRC) fellowship recipient. After post-doctoral positions at the University of Florida and UCLA (supported by an NIH fellowship), he co-led a DOE Science Focus Area centered on functional genomics of phototrophs at Brookhaven National Laboratory, NY. Since 2019 he heads the DNA synthesis platform at the Joint Genome Institute, where he leads three groups focused on HTP DNA design and assembly, strain engineering and bioinformatic tool development/data analysis.

  • Channabasavaiah Gurumurthy

    CB Gurumurthy (Guru), BVSC, MVSC, PHD, Exec MBA is the Director of Mouse Genome Engineering Core Facility at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), Omaha, Nebraska and he is also a professor in the department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Anatomy. He develops and improves mouse genome editing technologies. In collaboration with Dr Masato Ohtsuka, Tokai University, Japan, he has published several landmark papers on CRISPR genome engineering technologies. Two of their breakthrough technologies, Easi-CRISPR and i-GONAD, are now widely adapted at core facilities and laboratories. Several hundreds to thousands of mouse models are generated each year using their methods. Guru has received over 100 invitations within USA and over 20 invitations from 12 countries to deliver keynote talks or presentations, to organize workshops and to chair sessions at conferences. He is one of the six researchers to receive inaugural Outstanding Genomic Innovator award from the National Human Genome Research Institute.

  • Nils Averesch

    Nils is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Microbiology and Cell Science, University of Florida (UF). Before joining UF, Nils was a Research Engineer at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University and an Associate Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, Space Science and Astrobiology Division. Nils holds a PhD in Metabolic Engineering from the University of Queensland, Australia and an engineer’s degree in Biochemical Engineering from the Technical University of Dortmund, Germany.

    Nils’ research comprises the rational engineering of microbial metabolism to increase the carbon efficiency of biochemical pathways for the assimilation of single-carbon compounds and the conversion thereof into advanced biomaterials. This serves the overarching goal to create a sustainable chemical industry on Earth “on the way” to new frontiers: developing circular production platforms based on microbial biotechnology could one day also support crewed long-duration space-exploration missions and -settlement.

  • Aditya Sarnaik

    Aditya Pandharinath Sarnaik is an Associate Research Professional in the School for Sustainable Engineering and Built Environment (SSEBE) at Arizona State University (Polytechnic campus). He works at Arizona Centre for Algal Technology and Innovation (AzCATI). He is a Biotechnology graduate and a trained biochemical engineer, with expertise in bacterial (photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic) metabolic and protein engineering. He has experience with upstream as well as downstream processing/ process optimization of (engineered and wild-type) cyanobacteria at pilot scale.

  • Tiara Rahayu

    Tiara is Biotechnology enthusiast. Loving the world with collaboration in science, content creator, leadership in community, moderator event, and science communicator. My interests are about Biomedical informatics, genetic for disease, cancer genomics and precision oncology such as biomarkers. I have a sharing platform on @ngolabs for expand my network and get out more knowledge. Now, I’m being student research in National Research and Innovation Agency for handling Biomarker of HPV.

  • Anna Duraj-Thatte

    Anna Duraj-Thatte received her Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology, wherein she worked on protein engineering and directed evolution. Then she pursued her postdoctoral research at Wyss Institute, Harvard University. Dr. Duraj-Thatte’s research focuses on designing and developing novel strategies to produce smart engineered living materials (ELMs) by integrating the fields of synthetic biology, materials engineering, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence (AI). Over the last eight years, she has been developing the field of ELMs by demonstrating one of the first examples of therapeutic living materials and macroscopic transient self-regenerating
    materials for environmental applications. Her research work has also been featured in global media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, New Scientist, CBS Boston, and Science Alert. She received the Grand Prize in the American National Science Foundation (NSF) Idea Machine competition. She was also selected as a Deep Tech Pioneer and member of Harvard Innovation Lab’s Venture Incubation Program.

  • Elibio Rech

    Elibio Rech, a molecular engineer, geneticist, Researcher at EMBRAPA, and Director of the National Institute of Science and Technology in Synthetic Biology, developed gene transfer technologies to produce commercial genetically modified plant products. Aim to contribute to the design, construction, and engineering of synthetic genomes, cell-free protein expression, and building cell and synthetic genetic circuits, combining top-down and bottom-up approaches within the synergies and intersections of the recombinant DNA technology for synthetic domestication of specific traits from biodiversity.

  • Theresa Loveless

    Theresa Loveless received her Ph.D. in Cell Biology from UCSF, where she studied the molecular biology of DNA replication and the DNA damage response. As a postdoctoral researcher in synthetic biology, in the laboratory of Chang Liu at UC Irvine, she made DNA recorders, synthetic biology tools that transform transient events in a cell’s life into durable changes in a small “recording” region of the cell’s genome. Theresa just started her independent laboratory in the Department of BioSciences at Rice University. The goal of the lab is to make DNA recorders that document the activation history of many signaling pathways in parallel, in physiological settings, over the whole timescale of developmental processes. These recorders will make it possible to study how transient events that are experienced heterogeneously across populations of cells affect the later behavior of each cell. Theresa is a Leading Edge Fellow and a MOSAIC K99/R00 Scholar.

  • Elizabeth Kellogg

    Elizabeth Kellogg did her undergraduate studies at UC Berkeley and received a PhD from the University of Washington, working on computational biology in the group of David Baker. She then became a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Eva Nogales at UC Berkeley using cryo-electron microscopy. Her scientific background results in a scientific approach that seeks to understand biology with a quantitative perspective, relying on biological structure determination and design. Since starting her own group at Cornell University in 2019, Dr. Kellogg has sought to understand how transposons reshape genomes and how they can be repurposed as genome-editing tools. In particular, her group has investigated the behavior and molecular mechanisms of programmable, CRISPR-associated transposons (CASTs), to determine how DNA integration is regulated spatially and temporally in a genomic context, using a combination of biochemical, structural, single-molecule and genetic approaches. Among other honors, Dr. Kellogg was selected as Pew Biomedical Scholar in 2021 and received the 2023 Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award from the Biophysical Society. She joined St. Jude as an Associate Member in 2023.

  • Janet Standeven

    An educator with 28 years of classroom experience in Core Sciences, Social Sciences and Biotechnology. Founded the Lambert iGEM program in 2012. In 2022 Lambert’s team was named the Grand Prize Winner of the iGEM Jamboree. The iGEM competition is the leading collegiate competition in the field of synthetic biology. She is a 2022 recipient of a NIH SEPA grant with Dr. Bhamla of Georgia Institute of Technology. In collaboration with members of the Bhamla lab she leads students in research and development of synthetic biology projects that also include hardware and software components. Ongoing projects include the ElectroPen, a 23 cent electroporator and other frugal devices for extraction of DNA and quantification of data.
    Ms. Standeven received a BA in Anthropology and Social Studies Teaching Certificate from Millersville University of Pennsylvania. She earned her Master of Chemical Life Science from the University of Maryland in 2013. During her master’s studies she was a recipient of a G.I.F.T. fellowship with the Styczynski Group at Georgia Institute of Technology and subsequently received RET, support with the Styczynski group from 2014-2018. She is a recipient of numerous teaching awards and recognitions including Teacher of the Year in 2011 for Riverwatch Middle School, 2018 for Lambert High School, Forsyth County School STAR teacher in 2019 and 2023, in addition to being recognized as Biotechnology Teacher of the Year in Georgia for 2016. She was an attendee at the White House Bioeconomy Summit in 2019. She currently participates on the Human Practices committee for the iGEM foundation and serves as a Master Teacher for GABIO’s Rural Teacher Training Initiative.

  • Gozde Demirer

    Gozde was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey and received her B.S. in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Koc University in 2015. Gozde completed her Chemical Engineering Ph.D. at UC Berkeley with Prof. Markita Landry in 2020. During her Ph.D. studies, she developed nanotechnologies for plant genetic engineering. For her postdoctoral work, Gozde joined Prof. Siobhan Brady’s lab at UC Davis, where she studied nutrient use efficiency of tomato and developed high-throughput functional genomics tools to study transcriptional regulation in crops.

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