Experience

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  ArkeaBio

  • Scientist

    • Dec 2022 - Present

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  Zymergen, Inc.

  • Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

  • Scientist

    • Mar 2020 - Dec 2022
    • Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

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  enEvolv

  • Medford, Massachusetts, United States

  • Senior Strain Engineer

    • Sep 2016 - Mar 2020
    • Medford, Massachusetts, United States

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  Metabolix

  • United States
  • Biotechnology Research
  • 1 - 100 Employee

  • Senior Research Associate - PHA production

    • 2004 - Aug 2016

    Poly-hydroxy-alkanoate (PHA)•Key contributor to development of amorphous PHA (aPHA) P3HBco4HB copolymer industrial strains: Responsible for design and implementation of multiple synthetic pathways, KO of competing pathways, optimization of fluxes; aspects of strains used for pilot scale production of PHA.•Contributions to aPHA pathway manipulations relevant to 4HB production were later key parts of a renewable C4 chemicals platform and were included in a patent•Key contributor to P5HV basic research: Designed and constructed operons for synthesis of P5HV from lysine. Designed and performed experiments for generation of PHA samples containing wide range of P3HBco5HV compositions. Data generated and input led to contribution to a patent.•Lead investigator: Characterization and development of improved expression platforms. Work led to improved understanding of how certain strains achieve high productivity, leveraged findings to generate future PHA production strains evaluated at pilot scale•Trained in high density fermentation of PHA producing organisms in the DASGIP fermentation platform.

  • Senior Research Associate - Exploratory work

    • 2004 - Aug 2016

    Recombineering, cas9/CRISPR•Lead investigator: Improvement of scarless recombineering. Developed and tested in-house methods utilizing expression of ccdB, sacB, ibp7, and cas9/CRISPR for scar-free recombineering in unique strain backgrounds.•Designed and implemented method for curing persistent plasmids using cas9/CRISPR expression.Exploratory•Conceived and led investigation on a PHA / chromatin binding PhaM to determine effect on PHA producing industrial strains.•Conceived, designed, and investigated use of PHA binding transcriptional regulator PhaR as a selection tool for strains with improved PHA production capability. •Coordinated genome sequencing of selected microorganisms, maintained NGS data sets, and mined data for unique sequence. Other•Responsible for curation and maintenance of in-house strain database containing thousands of strains, plasmids, and descriptions of genetic elements.•Curator of in-house Geneious bioinfomatics database, contact point for maintenance of licenses and troubleshooting.

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  Institute of Arctic Biology DNA Core Lab

  • Lab Technician

    • 2003 - 2004

    Maintained and operated equipment for use by faculty and students. Performed supplemental research for selected PIs.Equipment: ABI 3100 sequencer and 7900 Q-PCR thermocyler, Transgenomic WAVE DHPLC, Qiagen Biorobot 9200, Biorad CHEF Mapper XA PFGEWrote and launched website for CORE facilityResearch Conducted: Cultured, generated cosmid library of a saxitoxin generating Anabaena species