My research group addresses big problems in sustainability, human health, national defense, and space exploration – using synthetic biology, metabolic engineering, genomics & systems biology, and protein engineering. We are most interested in derisking and speeding up cell line development. We work mostly in eukaryotic systems (non-model yeast and mammalian cells) as well as bacteria.
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.
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.
Dr. Ophelia Venturelli is an Assistant Professor in Biochemistry, Bacteriology and Chemical & Biological Engineering at UW-Madison. She began her appointment in July 2016 after completing a Life Sciences Research Foundation Fellowship at UC Berkeley in the laboratory of Dr. Adam P. Arkin. Dr. Venturelli’s postdoctoral research focused on microbial community dynamics and strategies to manipulate intracellular resource allocation. She received her PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics in 2013 from Caltech with Richard M. Murray, where she studied single-cell dynamics and the role of feedback loops in a metabolic gene regulatory network. The Venturelli lab focuses on understanding and engineering microbial communities using synthetic biology. Dr. Venturelli received the Shaw Scientist Award (2017), ARO Young Investigator Award (2017) and the NIH Outstanding Investigator Award (2017).
Dr. Kevin Solomon is an Assistant Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware. His work studies animal microbiomes to develop novel microbial platforms for sustainable biomanufacturing and depolymerization of polymeric waste substrates. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering from McMaster University (Canada) and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT. As part of his graduate work, Dr. Solomon developed new tools to increase biomanufacturing efficiency. His research and mentorship, at the intersection of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology, were recognized with multiple awards including a Lemelson Presidential Fellowship, an NSERC Julie Payette Award, and a Science Education Leadership Award from SynBERC. As a postdoctoral fellow at UC Santa Barbara, he applied the latest advances in sequencing technologies to study how anaerobic fungi degrade lignocellulose and identify new tools for synthetic biology. Using these techniques, he spearheaded efforts to molecularly characterize in depth a class of elusive microbes with tremendous potential for biofuel production, agriculture, and drug discovery. His work is supported by the NSF, DOE, private trusts and industry.
Jesse Zalatan is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Washington. His research focuses on understanding the physical organizing principles of biological networks in systems such as cell signaling, metabolism, and gene regulation, using methods ranging from mechanistic enzymology to synthetic biology. Jesse did his graduate work with Dan Herschlag on the mechanisms of enzyme-catalyzed phosphoryl transfer reactions. He performed postdoctoral research with Wendell Lim, where he studied mechanisms for controlling specificity in cell signaling networks.
Dr. Peccoud’s research program focuses on synthetic biology informatics. His group combines computational and experimental efforts to develop predictive models of behaviors encoded in synthetic DNA sequences. He is particularly interested in using methods from synthetic biology to optimize biomanufacturing processes used to produce biologic drugs, antibodies, and other proteins of commercial interest. Peccoud is also actively engaged in efforts to understand the security implications of synthetic biology.
Shortly after completing a graduate research project in molecular immunology, Jean Peccoud’s scientific interests shifted to computational biology. In 1989, he published one of the first articles describing a mathematical model of molecular noise in gene regulatory networks. In 1993, he recognized the importance of real-time PCR and developed new statistical techniques suitable to analyze this new type of data. In 2002, he observed with excitement the very early developments of synthetic biology. After exploring the potential applications of this new technology to plant biotechnology, he blazed a trail in synthetic biology informatics.
Jean Peccoud came to Colorado State University from the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech. He brought with him a diverse experience that includes working for Fortune 500 and start-up companies. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal Synthetic Biology published by Oxford University Press.
Michael Fero is a Co-Founder and CEO of TeselaGen Biotechnology Inc., a San Francisco based software company that has built Synthetic Evolution® – the AI driven operating system for synthetic biology. Michael received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California and contributed to the verification of the Standard Model at CERN and SLAC via the world’s most precise measurement of the Weinberg angle governing the coupling between the electromagnetic and weak interactions. Dr. Fero’s interest in biology led to a collaboration with Pat Brown and David Botstein at Stanford to build the world’s first human genome microarrays and do early research on expression level characterization of cancer cells. Dr. Fero then turned to systems biology where, in collaboration with Lucy Shapiro and Harley McAdams, he developed an automated high content diffraction limited microscopic screen of triply fluorescently tagged bacteria to better understand the bacterial cell cycle. Afterwards, Dr. Fero and two Stanford Shapiro/McAdams Lab colleagues started TeselaGen Biotechnology as a way to accelerate synthetic biology and the bio-based economy. Seeing a big deficiency in biologists’ ability to create what they imagine, TeselaGen focuses on making the mind to molecule process easier and faster with an AI driven, cloud-based enterprise platform for synthetic biology.
Emily Aurand is the Senior Director for Roadmapping and Education at the Engineering Biology Research Consortium. She has been with EBRC since 2018, serving as the staff lead for both the Roadmapping and Education Focus Areas. Emily is the Executive Editor of EBRC’s technical research roadmaps, and has led the production and release of all six EBRC technical roadmaps to-date, available through https://roadmap.ebrc.org. She directs roadmap design and development, manages large teams of academic, industry, government and other stakeholder contributors, leads and oversees workshop development and facilitation, and is responsible for production and execution of roadmap publications.
Emily also serves as an expert on engineering biology and biotechnology education and workforce development, engaging with the U.S. government, organizations such as the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, and international collaborators on the education and training of the next-generation bioeconomy workforce. Emily created and led the EBRC Industry Internship Program and produces public engagement and outreach activities and materials through the EBRsee initiative. Emily supervises and mentors the EBRC science policy postdocs and research assistant and supports the Student & Postdoc Association.
Emily also leads the EBRC Industry & Organizational Member Advisory Committee and leads science policy communications, develops and manages funding and grant support, and oversees and manages the EBRC websites.
Prior to coming to EBRC, Emily was an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the National Science Foundation. At NSF her work in the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems (CBET) included evaluation and assessment of the Synthetic Biology and Biomanufacturing portfolios, collaboration on the strategic reorganization of CBET programmatic concentrations, and development and implementation of novel funding initiatives, in addition to serving as a subject matter expert (a biologist amongst engineers). During her AAAS fellowship, Emily also served as a co-chair of the Fellows’ Science Diplomacy Affinity Group, which explores how science and technology cooperation can be used as a tool for diplomacy.
Emily received a B.S. in Biomedical Sciences from Colorado State University and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Colorado. She continued her academic training in Trieste, Italy with a neuroengineering post-doctoral fellowship at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA). Her scientific research experience spans the fields of developmental neurobiology, biomaterial development, and neural tissue engineering and biocompatibility.
Emily is a United States Figure Skating Double Gold Medalist and the proud Auntie to adorable toddler Jack. In her free time, she likes to relax by practicing yoga, dance in her kitchen while she cooks, and snuggle with her elderly cats (who make frequent appearances in EBRC virtual events). When she’s not traveling to convene with EBRC members and stakeholders, Emily lives and works in Colorado.
Prof. Howard Salis is an Associate Professor at Penn State University where his research lab focuses on the development & experimental validation of predictive biophysical models & design algorithms for rationally engineering synthetic organisms. Thousands of researchers have utilized these models & algorithms to design hundreds of thousands of synthetic DNA sequences for a wide variety of biotech applications. Prof. Salis received his Ph. D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. He received the DARPA Young Faculty and the NSF Career Award. He is also the founder of a spin-off company, De Novo DNA, that has developed a web-based design platform for engineering organisms.
Kristala L. J. Prather is the Arthur D. Little Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. She received an S.B. degree from MIT in 1994 and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley (1999), and worked 4 years in BioProcess Research and Development at the Merck Research Labs prior to joining the faculty of MIT. Her research interests are centered on the design and assembly of recombinant microorganisms for the production of small molecules. Prather is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions; she has co-authored more than 90 peer-reviewed publications and given more than 140 invited presentations.
Dr. Peralta-Yahya’s diverse research group works in the area of engineering biology, drawing from principles of chemistry, biochemistry and chemical engineering to build systems for chemical detection and production. Her group focuses on the development of G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR)-based sensors for biotechnology and biomedical applications, and the engineering of biological systems for the production of advanced biofuels and modified natural products. Early on, her work was recognized with several awards including a DARPA Young Faculty Award, a DuPont Young Professor Award, a Kavli Fellowship, and an NIH MIRA award. Her group’s key accomplishments are 1) the standardization of GPCR-based sensors in yeast to reduce the cost and accelerate the pace of drug discovery for these receptors, which are the target of over 30% of FDA approved drugs, and 2) the development of advanced biofuels, including pinene, which, when dimerized, has sufficient energy content to power rockets and missiles. Today, her group is funded to work on these and other cutting edge areas – including how to power a rocket returning from Mars and how to make synthetic cells learn without evolution – by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and NASA.
He has 24 years of research experience in chemistry, systems biology, and synthetic biology, including 5.5 years of industry experience (as of 2021). His research focus (2012-21; 15 grants; $7.3M external funding to him; $16M to the entire team) is understanding gene regulation, evolution, and metabolism, building sensors and genetic circuits, and engineering microbes to solve global problems, including climate crisis, waste valorization, plastic upcycling, sustainability, and health issues. He has published 52 papers, has filed 9 patents, and has given 51 invited and 118 contributed presentations. He has advised 26 PhD/Postdoctoral and 28 undergrad researchers. He is a Founder and Head of the SAB of Moonshot Bio. Several awards include a B&B Wang Award, an NSF CAREER award, an ONR YIP, a Sluder Fellowship (MIT), and the SNU President Prize. He is the Founding Chair of SynBYSS (Synthetic Biology Young Speaker Series) with more than 1000 global audiences.
Twitter handle: @Moon_Synth_Bio
Professor Liu’s research is in the fields of synthetic biology, chemical biology, and directed evolution. He is particularly interested in engineering specialized genetic systems for rapid mutation and evolution in vivo to address problems ranging from protein engineering to developmental biology. For his group’s work, Professor Liu has been recognized with a number of awards including the NIH Transformative Research Award, the NIH New Innovator Award, the Moore Inventor Fellowship, the Sloan Research Fellowship, the Beckman Young Investigator Award, the Dupont Young Professor Award, and the ACS Synthetic Biology Young Innovator Award.
Michael Jewett is a Professor of Bioengineering at Stanford University. He received his B.S. from UCLA and PhD from Stanford University, both in Chemical Engineering. He completed postdoctoral studies at the Center for Microbial Biotechnology in Denmark and the Harvard Medical School. Jewett was also a guest professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). His research group focuses on advancing synthetic biology research to support planet and societal health, with applications in medicine, manufacturing, sustainability, and education.
The Carothers Research Group at the University of Washington creates design-driven approaches for synthetic biology that integrate quantitative RNA aptamer device design, dynamic control system modeling, and CRISPR-Cas network engineering to investigate questions about biological design and develop technologies for bio-based chemical synthesis. Previously, Carothers was a postdoctoral fellow with pioneering synthetic biologist Jay D. Keasling at UC Berkeley. Carothers earned a Ph.D. at Harvard University with Nobel Prize winner Jack W. Szostak. He has a B.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale. His work has been recognized by the UW Presidential Innovation Award and the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, and supported by the NSF, DOE and private industry. He has been awarded the UW College of Engineering Junior Faculty Award and is a Dan Evans Career Development Professor.
